Infected Series (Book 1): Mission: New York (3 page)

“You’re right, we need to go and have a look. There might be something that we can do to help. I will go, but I will not go alone. Who will come with me and help?” Simon said quietly, loud enough that everyone could hear him. “I am looking for volunteers.” Simon reached down and lifted his nearly empty cup and drank the last of the coffee. He decided to get a refill of his coffee first before he was going to head out to see if there was a survivor next door.  Pouring the coffee into his cup he noticed that it was still hot, not too hot but just enough to be good. Just as he was about to put the jug back down everyone heard the scream. He started, and fumbled with the jug; dropping it on the floor where it shattered. Some of the grounds splattered on his shoes and pants.

“Damn, I did not want that to happen.” he said harshly to himself.

The scream came again, just as he was about to try wipe off the grounds.

“No time he shouted, we need to go now. Who is with me?” He called urgently. He saw that Dawson and Phil had stood and nodded.

“Right, I have my baseball bat. What have you guys got to use as weapons?” Simon asked quickly as he looked around. Dawson reached for her bag and pulled out the machete she had worn when he had first seen her. Phil had a length of pipe in his hands; motioning over to Dawson and said in his throaty voice with a raised eyebrow,

“She had this in that bag, along with a few other interesting articles. She is definitely a girl scout.”

Dawson chuckled, and looked sheepishly at Simon trying to explain, “I am a plumber now, and I was on my way to a job downtown, when all this shit happened.” she said simply, “My machete goes everywhere with me. My bag does contain a few tools, along with a knuckle duster for protection.”

Phil laughed at this, and looked at Simon, “She is one hell of a woman this Dawson, Simon. I know she said she was a soldier but among her tools are a wrench; some duct tape; as well as a few lengths of pipe.”

Simon laughed, shaking his head at the woman; who just stood there, her shoulders shaking as she tried to suppress a giggle. “We need to move out People, come on. Let’s go and have a look at the situation.” she snorted as she spoke.

“Right, let’s go Dawson.” walking toward the door, his bat in his hands. The other two followed him toward the front door, where Judith stood, nervously wringing her hands. As Simon approached her, she tried to calm her nerves and spoke to Simon softly.

“Come back, go but please do come back safely to me. I like you. I want to get to know you better.” she said softly, placing a hand on his arm gently.

Simon smiled at her and nodded. Looking back at Phil and Dawson they nodded as well, and reached the door. Judith opened the door and the three of them left the shop quickly, blinking in the sunlight. A meaty smell of raw meat and the coppery smell of blood hit their nostrils as they walked into the bright sunlight. He had not noticed the smell before as he had not been as exposed earlier to the smell. They moved as silently as they could toward the shop next door. There they saw the shattered window, and looked into the interior. Fortunately the lights were still on and they quickly entered the flower shop. They heard the noise of someone or something moving deeper inside the shop. They spread out, moving behind the counter and into the storeroom at the back of the shop. They heard a scuffling noise, and Simon spoke softly to them; letting them know that if they got the chance they should take out whatever it was inside the shop. Moving carefully Simon reached the door to the storeroom, and carefully pulled it open with the hand not holding the bat.

Suddenly the creature exploded out of the store room, rushing silently toward them; shoving Simon out of the way, into the wall and that knocked him out. Dawson and Phil were fortunately ready for anything, and the pipe that Phil swung connected squarely with the creatures head. The creature fell, landing hard on the floor and collapsing into a heap. It had only been stunned briefly and almost immediately it jumped back up and roared at Phil, hitting him squarely into the counter. Dawson struck the creature from behind with her machete; striking in a downward arc she hit the creature in the head, severing the brainstem. The creature collapsed writhing, it’s life force extinguished finally. Phil stood, shaking his head and limped back over to Dawson and together they went over to where Simon lay. They reached down and sat him up slowly, making sure he was still breathing. After a minute he regained consciousness, and stood shakily, looking at the creature now lying dead on the floor.

“Wha..what happened?” he said groggily, looking at Dawson and Phil, standing unsteadily. “W.. we still need to investigate the scream, and see if there is anyone else in here. Let me take a minute to recover, and then we can move out to look further.”

Dawson and Phil agreed, and they let Simon gather his wits before they moved ahead with their impromptu plan. They continued moving forward carefully toward the open door, and slowly entered the store room when the stench of raw meat and blood hit them. Gagging, Simon nearly retched, but fortunately managed to hold it down. The woman’s body lay sprawled on the floor, her scattered organs destroyed by the creature that had once been a man. Mostly complete she was starting to twitch; the process nearly complete of turning her into one of the creatures as well. Dawson saw the body move and quickly strode up to the woman, and quickly delivered a blow to the head, destroying the brainstem with a single stroke. Another noise came from further back in the store, and they all froze. Looking at each other they slowly moved toward the noise. Stepping carefully they approached the location of the noise, being extra cautious to not make any unnecessary noise. The scratched cupboard stood against the back wall, and the three of them could see the fresh scratches on the wooden sides and door. A scraping noise came from inside the cupboard, and the door opened with a small squeak. Simon spoke softly, wanting to reassure the person that was hiding in there that everything was okay. A head finally appeared from inside the closet; a rather pretty brunette. Her luminous eyes were tearing up and she spoke softly, “Is..is it safe? Can I come out now?”

Chapter Five

Ella climbed out of the closet, stretched and then ran up to the three rescuers, hugging them each in turn; thanking them for their rescue from the creature. They looked at this elfin creature, and smiled. Her story came out then as she told them of her hiding in the closet, after she had seen the creature come into the store after her. She had run into the store hoping that somebody was there, and the owner had been just about to investigate the same scream Simon had initially heard when the attack had happened. That was how she had gotten into the store, and the owner and herself had closed and locked the door behind them and moved into the back of the storage area. The creature had apparently not been so clever and must have missed Ella running into the store. Gratefully Ella had thanked the owner and had warned her of the danger that she was in, and told her not to go out there at all; no matter what happened. Ella had asked if she could use the bathroom and had gone to try to calm herself down. Ella explained that after an hour after everything had ‘calmed down’; the owner had decided to put her flowers out for the day. She had not realised the danger she was placing herself in and had started to move the flower stands out the door, and that was where the creature had finally spotted her. Ella had been in the storage room, watching horrified, from the door and realised too late that the woman had endangered them both by trying to act as if it were a normal day. The creature had charged the woman who had run toward the door and had just managed to close it behind her when the creature had broken the glass and come in through the broken door. That was when Ella had screamed in fear. Realising the creature was inside, and had by this point seen what was happening and had gone to find the only place she could think of to hide; the cupboard. Where she had just emerged from and had recounted her story to the three of them. Shaking she sat down, trying to catch her breath.

“We heard your scream and decided to come and investigate. That is how we came into the shop and killed the creature and her victim.” Simon said with a low voice. “We had better get to my shop next door, and try seeing if there is anything we can do to make my shop a bit safer for us if we want to stay there for any length of time while this crisis is on.”

“I must admit, I thought that I was going to die. I did not realise there was anybody nearby. Thank you again.” said Ella a bit breathily. “Thank you very much.” 

Simon blushed a little at her thanks and smiled back at her. Her face lit up and he saw the smile grow, and she quickly reached out to Simon and kissed him on the lips. He started and blushed again furiously. He could not believe that now there was a girl he was interested in and another girl that was interested in him! His mind whirled as he thought of the conflict that this could cause. He knew Judith was possibly interested in him, and then this new complication of Ella had just cropped up. Ella went to Dawson, hugged her and also went up to Phil, but did not kiss him; just shook his hand. Simon saw the three of them chatting quietly in the corner while he stood there trying to get this new twist straightened in his head. He could not believe that somehow he had become the sort of leader, and Dawson had become the second in charge. He chuckled at the thought of everyone listening to him. The other three looked at him as he chuckled, and they came over.

“I was just thinking that our little group has two leaders now, myself and you, Dawson.” he said quietly, looking at each of them in turn. “What do you think Phil?”

“Well I reckon so far you have been pretty good, but a little bit impulsive in my opinion. You need to think more before you just react,” he stated plainly. “For all of that you have a pretty sweet spot next door with all that water as a start.” Phil said slowly, rubbing his stubble.

“Phil is right Simon; we need to strategize better before we react to the next crisis. We need to look for better weapons. I have an idea that we could possibly go down the street to the gun shop; break in and get some firepower.” said Dawson, “I will gladly help with my military background to get us outfitted with decent firearms. It will be a far better bet than using machetes, baseball bats and other odds and ends.”

“Dawson, I think you are absolutely correct. I reckon we need to go and have a look at that gun shop. Now taking into consideration what all of you just mentioned; we need to make a plan of attack.” he said simply. “We can use your experience, as you are ex-military. Do you have any ideas of how we can get into the gun shop?”

“I do Simon, that I do.” Dawson chuckled. “My lock picks will come in handy for opening the door. Then we can ‘shop’ for some hardware.”

“Lock picks? What the hell do you have lock picks for?” asked Simon incredulously.

“Well as a security specialist I sometimes need to B+E, to access files and other things.” she stated matter-of-factly. “Right now, we need to think how we can approach the building carefully to avoid being spotted and not draw attention to ourselves.”

They all looked at her as she laid out her plan. They would try approach from the alleyway next to the building, but would need to possibly get into the alley at dusk. That way they could be pretty quiet. They all agreed that it was a pretty good plan and would head back to the coffee shop for now. They looked around inside the shop, and gathered up a few materials, after gathering tools that they found in a toolbox. They made their way back to the shop, taking the supplies back with them. Ella was introduced to the rest of the group back at the shop, and was welcomed by nearly everyone. The only person who did not exactly smile was Judith, when Ella was introduced to her. Judith had obviously already found a soft spot for Simon, and she was disgusted by the fawning of Ella over Simon. Ella had not strayed far from Simon’s side since arriving in the coffee shop. Judith had given her the cold shoulder, not wanting to speak to the new ‘girl’ even though she was so much younger than Simon. The green-eyed monster was rearing its ugly head in their presence. Simon had noticed this shift in the group dynamic, and was worried that this could cause friction in their group. He wanted to get together with the two girls, and get them to thrash it out with them as he did not want to have them bitching at each other. He liked Judith, and was pretty sure that Ella had a massive crush on him due to the rescue earlier. Shaking his head he sighed and looked at how they had moved to opposite sides of the coffee shop. He vowed they would have a talk about the dynamics of the group before they headed out to the gun shop.             

Chapter Six

They busied themselves the rest of the day trying to use what little they had scavenged from the shop next door to create a safer haven in the coffee shop. Most people had helped, with a few that grumbled and did not want to help. Once that task had been completed, they relaxed; had a bite to eat to build up their strength a little, Simon grabbed the opportunity to gather everyone and discuss their next step as to them securing themselves from further attacks from the infected. He walked around the shop, checking that everything was in place, and if there was somebody trying to break in; it would be more difficult to actually make any egress into the shop. It looked more like a fort now that they had fortified the doors and windows in the shop. Simon felt reasonably secure now that they had completed the task of securing the shop. The next thing on his agenda was to get the girls together and sort out the simmering animosity that was bubbling between them. He walked over to Judith first, and spoke to her softly, noting how Ella watched him the whole time. Judith nodded and agreed to try and have a discussion with Ella about the situation they found themselves in. Ella was not exactly welcoming when Simon and Judith walked over. Her demeanour was chilly, she did not want to really get involved but Simon gave her no option.