Deadlocked 6 (8 page)

I don’t know why I was talking to myself, or why it took so long for me to realize that the truck was on fire. But once I understood it, a second, awful realization stilled my heart.

The girls were in the animal trailer that had just overturned
- the one that was filled with zombies chained to the walls.

Celeste

Kim covered me as I climbed into the back of the truck. Zombies were chained to the walls inside, and I heard the familiar sound of their wheezing breath as they stretched out to grab me. The chains choked them, but the creatures never gave up.

A group of soldiers had moved to the rear of the second truck, the one Kim had been driving, to look for Hailey. Now they were coming back, and Kim kept them at bay by firing at the corner of the truck that they were hiding behind.

There were too many of them, and Kim would run out of bullets soon. The truck roared beneath me as Hero stepped on the gas and I realized that Kim was going to die if I didn't get her up into the truck with me.

The soldiers wielded their massive guns, and crouched along the side of the other truck, waiting for when Kim had to reload. Our truck started to move, and Kim wouldn't be able to climb up without turning her back to the soldiers. She was going to sacrifice herself to save me, and I couldn't let that happen.

"No," I said as I leapt off the back of the truck.

"What are you doing?" Kim scowled at me while continuing to fire at the soldiers as the truck rolled away from us.

I moved to stand in front of her, blocking her from the soldiers. "Get in the truck."

"What?" asked Kim, bewildered and frustrated.

"They won't shoot me. Now get in the truck."

I turned and held my arms out wide, like I had for Hailey when we escaped the Facility. A soldier peered around the corner of the truck, and I saw a small, cylindrical canister in his hand. A metal ring sprang from the object and cascaded through the air before he flung the cylinder in an arc, over the front end of the truck they hid behind. It landed about three feet in front of me.

"Close your eyes!" Kim screamed at me from behind, but I didn't have time to take her advice.

I'd never encountered a flash
bang grenade before, and when it exploded I was certain I'd been shot. My eyes seared, and my vision was blanked in pure white. All sound was replaced with a jarring ring that I could feel quaking in my eardrums with every beat of my trembling heart. My skin was hot, and the back of my head inexplicably hurt. Then I felt an arm reach under my armpit and pull me backward.

My feet were being dragged, and I could feel gravel scraping at them as the pain on the back of my head intensified. The first sound that came back to me was a hollow bang, like a cymbal crash from deep within a cave. Then there was another, but this time it was louder and closer, I could feel the vibration that the sound caused. It was a gunshot, and it was close to me. Kim was firing her pistol beside my head.

I smelled smoke before my back collided with something rigid and hot. That's when I understood what was happening. Kim was trying to pull me into the back of the truck. She'd grabbed my hair, and her arm was looped around my side. The heat on my back was the black metal grate that had been baking in the midday sun.

I anchored m
y elbows against the metal lip and lifted myself up. Kim pulled me back and I felt the putrid soup splash over me as I was dragged into the trailer. The wretched smell made it hard to breathe, as if the oxygen itself was replaced with the odor of death. I still couldn't see, but the blank white expanse had changed to a grey one and I could tell by the shade's variation where the back of the truck was.

"Stay in the middle," said Kim. Her voice was a whisper amid the ringing in my ears, but I knew she was screaming. We were in the animal trailer, with the walls on either side of us lined with chained zombies, all of them snapping their jaws and scrambling to break their binds and devour us. Every bump in the road threatened to shift us into their grip.

"Are we on fire?" I asked.

"Everything is," said Kim. "Can you see?"

"No. What happened?"

"There was fuel leaking out, and that flashbang lit it. The whole damn place is on fire," said Kim. She was kneeling beside me and I heard her eject the magazine of her pistol. "I'm out of bullets."

The truck smashed into something on our right as we faced the backend, and I heard glass shatter before an odd scraping noise came from the side of our trailer. I slid to the side as the fluid beneath me shifted. We'd hit a tree. The scraping that I'd heard were the branches clawing at the perforated side of the trailer, and now we were tilting precariously to the opposite side. There was an awful squeal coming from the vehicle as it struggled not to tip over.

"Hold on," said Kim as gravity pulled us toward the wall where the chained zombies were waiting for their meal. I tried to grab on to something, but I wasn't able to stop from sliding to the wall. I collided with a body, and felt it writhing beneath me. The zombie's hands gripped my arms and I felt its mouth clamp down on my shoulder. Kim screamed out from above me and then I heard her sliding across the metal. She thudded down beside me as I lay against the creature, and then the zombie's teeth were pulled away from my shoulder. I could feel the vibration of its head smashing against the wall over and over until its hands stopped digging at my flesh. I didn't need to see to understand that Kim had bashed the zombie's skull in.

"We're going down," said Kim. "Hold my hand."

I grasped her arm as the truck overturned. I heard the calamitous crash of the cab hit the ground first, and then we were jerked off our lopsided trajectory and were pulled down as well. The wall beneath me pounded down and dirt sprayed up through the holes. The blood, bile, vomit, feces, and urine sloshed across us in a vile wave.

I blinked away the pale, and my vision slowly returned. I couldn't see well, but I could make out shapes that were more detailed the closer they were, as if everything was enveloped in a thick fog. The first thing I saw was the splattered brain matter of the zombie Kim had killed. The pulpy, pink meat was sprinkled with stark white fragments of bone, and the viscous blood clung to it like syrup might stick to a shattered plate.

Above me, the zombies that were chained to the opposite wall were left hanging from their bindings. Their eyes bulged as their necks were tied back, and their bodies dangled, secured loosely at their waist by another chain. They floated in and out of my hazed vision as if swimming up at me from a polluted lake.

"Get up," said Kim. She took my arm and pulled me up, unforgiving and unwilling to let me falter. She was uncompromising in her determination to save me, and I was too dazed to argue. I glanced down, and saw the boy I'd met earlier, Griffin. He was covered in fluid and dirt, and half of his head was missing. He was looking at me, and the right side of his face was torn off. I could see the cavity where his brain should've been.

"Come on." Kim took my arm and pulled me along. We had to duck to avoid the hanging creatures and the smoke made it hard to breath. That’s when I realized it wasn't just the flashbang that clouded my vision; there was smoke everywhere. The ground around the trailer flashed with orange flame that illuminated the thick smoke, and I coughed as I pressed my arm over my nose and mouth.

Thin red beams of light pierced the bleakness, dancing across the wisps of smoke as mechanical voices screamed out for us to surrender. Kim cried out a warning as a man materialized in the haze, but the stinging smoke must've blinded her because she wasn't able to stop him. The soldiers were masked, and protected from the debilitating atmosphere. She never stood a chance.

The soldier slammed the butt of his rifle against the side of her head. I felt the splash of her bl
ood on my cheek before she crumpled to her knees. The blow hadn't knocked her out, but she was dazed and couldn't do anything more than stare up at me. I wanted to fight to save her, but the thick smoke had invaded my lungs. I was struggling to breath and couldn't fight back as my body convulsed from lack of oxygen.

I thought I blinked, but when I opened my eyes again I was on my knees with my arms behind my back as a soldier restrained me. I watched as they kicked Kim into submission, a task that was harder than they expected. She clawed at their legs as they smashed their boots into her.

One of the soldiers put a mask over my face. The rubber seal pressed against my skin and trapped smoke inside that continued to sting my eyes. Then, with a burst of suction, the smoke disappeared and the mask tightened against my head. My eyes watered as I gasped and coughed, savoring the fresh air as I was escorted out of the truck. They expected me to leave without a fight, which was a mistake.

They'd bound my wrists, but I refused to allow them to kill Kim while I still drew breath. I dropped to my back and the man holding my cuffs tried to pull me up, but I was too quick for him. I spun and wrapped my legs around his waist, then twisted in an attempt to pull him down with me. Unfortunately, I didn't have the leverage necessary to do anything more than annoy my captor. He stood anchored as I tried to twist, and then he grasped my neck. He held me with one hand and then punched me in the side with the other. All air escaped my lungs in a sudden rush and tears sprang from my eyes.

He dragged me to the back of the trailer, over corpses that were still tied to the walls. The soldiers had killed the zombies on their way in, and the remnants of the creature's skulls floated amid the stinking fluid like bits of meat in a horrific stew.

The soldier lifted me onto his shoulder as I kicked and writhed, but he held me tightly and started to run from the burning wreckage. When we were clear of the smoke I was afforded a view of the scene. There was a line of flames that traced the path the truck had taken, and the dry weeds were quickly becoming engulfed. The helicopters had retreated higher, the pilots fearful of the debilitating haze, but their blades still stirred the smoke. At the front of the overturned truck I saw soldiers pulling Hero's body out of the shattered windshield. He was sopped in blood and didn't move, certainly dead.

His death broke me. Hero had been one of the kindest of all the people I'd met since escaping the Facility, and he had worked tirelessly to protect me every chance he got. Seeing his body being pulled out of the truck was enough to cause me to give up. I didn't want to fight anymore. I couldn't stand to see any more people killed on my behalf. The soldiers had tracked me to Vineyard; they had tracked me here. I was the reason these people were dead. It was my fault.

Then there was a flash of gunfire that illuminated the smoke around the trailer they'd pulled me from. I was certain that they'd killed Kim, and my despair deepened.

If I'd simply refused to fight, and allowed these men to capture me, then Hero and Kim would still be alive. It was my desire to fight that cost them their lives, and the realization of the damage I'd done caused my willpower to disappear.

The soldier carried me far from the fire and dropped me to my feet. I collapsed to my knees and cried. My tears fell like raindrops on the inside of my visor.

I felt the man's hands on my neck and didn't bother fighting back. He slipped his fingers into the tightly suctioned rim of the mask and then I felt the pressure change. My ears popped as the mask was removed. He pulled it off and then held it under his arm.

"Miss Cobra Dawn," said the gravel
ly voice of the man above me. "Are you okay?"

"Fuck you." I stayed on my knees, staring at the dirt.

He laughed. "Looks like you've picked up a few bad habits while on the Surface."

"Why are you doing this to them? What did they do to you?" I finally looked up at him.

He was an older man. His face was creased with several deep wrinkles and he had thick eyebrows. The sun glinted off his sweaty brow and shaved head.

He glanced over his shoulder at the burning wreckage and shrugged. "The dead ones?" He looked back down at me with a slight smirk, just perceptible enough for me to recognize his devious pleasure. "I guess we'll just let them burn."

"Did you kill Kim?" I'd seen Hero's body, but I'd yet to see Kim's. There was a chance she was still alive.

"You mean the girl that was in the truck with you?"

I nodded and gazed through the smoke at the flaming truck.

He looked that way as well and then shrugged. "She's dead by now for sure. Just like the driver." He smirked at me again and chuckled this time. "Everyone you care about is dead."

I was helpless at his feet. My body ached from the trauma of the crash, and my arms were tied behind my back, but more than the physical restraints, my willpower was drained. Despite how I loathed him, I had no will to fight back anymore. I just wanted to know, "Why are you doing this?"

He waved in the air as one of the helicopters descended towards us. Debris swirled and dirt struck my cheek. I squinted up at him and asked again, "Why are you doing this?"

He took my arm and forced me to stand. The noise from the helicopter had drowned out my voice and he leaned in as he shouted, "What?"

"Why are you doing this? Why did you come after me?"

"Because, Cobra," he said as he shielded his eyes. "Your mother wants to see you."