Survivors (24 page)

Hal Dorne fired another shot at one of the shamblers, caught it high in the chest, and knocked it to the ground. It would be back up in moments, but at least it would slow the decaying infected down a bit. He took stock of their situation, and found it approaching hopeless.

The sailors were outnumbered. Shamblers lined the highway’s edge above, and more came at them out of the pitch-black woods. The sailors’ ammunition was running low. A pitched fight would see them all dead.

Think, Hal. Think. What do you do?

The answer hit him immediately.

Stiles. Get Stiles out of here.

The retired tank mechanic cast about for the young soldier. He spotted him kneeling in the grass, levering a round into his Winchester. His well-aimed shot dropped another shambler. Hal made a beeline for the resourceful young man and grabbed him by the shoulder.

Stiles shrugged off Hal’s grasp and fired again.

“Stiles!” shouted Hal. “We have to go! Now!”

Stiles spared an angry glare in Hal’s direction. “These guys are getting slaughtered!”

“Come on, Mark! We have to get you out of here! You’re the key! We can’t let you die here!”

Hal grabbed at Stiles’s clothing again, trying to pull him back and away from the engagement. Stiles pushed back hard, knocking Hal on his rear.

“Fuck off, Hal!” shouted Stiles.

Hal’s patience had worn thin. He pulled himself to his feet, wound up, and roundhouse-punched Stiles in the jaw, sending the soldier sprawling. Hal was on him before Stiles could recover, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt. “Listen up, Stiles! You’re our one hope for a vaccine! All of these men tonight will have died for nothing if you check out here! Get your shit together, son! We need you alive!”

The blow seemed to restore Stiles’s senses. He looked around the culvert, swallowed hard, and nodded. “All right, Hal. Fine. Have it your way. Let’s go.”

“About goddamned time!” was Hal’s shouted reply.

The pair picked themselves up, grabbed their weapons, and climbed the opposite side of the culvert.

Hal spared one final glance over his shoulder at the firefight in the ditch. The bodies of shamblers lined the ditch, surrounded by the bloodied and fresh corpses of sprinters. At the far end, Commander Harris and Stone had pulled the infected off Allen and were backing up, still firing nonstop, at the approaching horde of shamblers. They were making for the storm drain. Rico was nowhere to be seen.

Hal saw Stiles gritting his teeth, probably feeling like a traitor. Stiles turned his back on the scene and took off after Hal, who had turned to forge a trail through the tall grasses and young trees that led east, toward Omaha.

Mark Stiles moved slower.

“What is it?” Hal asked.

“My leg is burning.”

The original bite, the one he’d received in Hyattsburg, hadn’t infected him, but it also refused to heal properly. It was closed up and showed no signs of putrefaction, but it still pained him. Hal waved him on, and Stiles limped as fast as he could after him, swishing the tall grasses out of his way as he went.

Behind him, the sounds of gunfire began to fade. By the time Hal and Stiles had made it across a wide field and into another narrow stand of trees, the sound was little more than echoes in the distance. Hal felt sick to his stomach. He’d grown to be friends with many of the sailors, and to lose them this close to their destination struck him as cruelly unfair.

Looking everywhere but at Stiles, Hal pushed his way through the tightly knit branches of a young pine grove, emerging in a tiny, ten-foot-by-ten-foot clearing. It wasn’t much better than their original camp spot, but the trees here were much closer together, forming a curtain no eyes could penetrate. If they stayed quiet, they would be safe until the sun rose and the infected retreated to their shady hideaways.

“This will do,” whispered Hal, kneeling in the center of the clearing. “We’re another half mile closer to Omaha.”

Stiles said nothing. The gunshots in the distance had dropped off into silence.

“I managed to save my pack,” Hal went on, unslinging the rough leather knapsack from his shoulders. “We have a little food, some medical supplies, and one of the short-range radios.”

“We just lost a bunch of good men,” whispered Stiles, his face a mask. “We were so close.”

“Don’t,” replied Hal. “If we get a vaccine out of your blood, all of it will have been worth it.”

“Yeah,” said Stiles. “I keep hearing that.”

“You don’t believe it?” asked Hal.

Stiles shrugged.

“Get some faith or get used to it,” said Hal, pointing a finger at Stiles. “You’re humanity’s greatest asset right now, my friend. We gotta keep you safe.”

“Safe,” mused Stiles.

Hal scoffed. “There are safe places. Little place in the islands in the South Pacific. Had myself a nice little shack there. Plenty of beer. Beautiful native girls. You know—perfect tans. Water’s just as blue as the Caribbean. Paradise. That’s why I retired there.” Hal chuckled. “Fucked that one up pretty good, didn’t I?”

Stiles kept his mouth shut.

Hal continued. “Yes, sir, right now I should be hitting golf balls in my backyard, sipping a beer and listening to Skynyrd. But here I am instead—dodging infected, back in the good old U.S. of A. Hell of a retirement. Take my advice, Mark.”

“What’s that?” asked Stiles.

“Don’t bother investing in a retirement fund. Spend it all now, while you’re young enough to enjoy it.”

“Never did start one.”

“One what?” asked Hal.

“A retirement fund,” said Stiles. “Guess I never thought that far ahead.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Time passed in silence. Overhead, the waxing moon was disappearing behind the treetops. Stiles checked his watch, remembered he’d traded it a while back for a few painkillers from the sailors’ medic to help him with his leg, and gave Hal’s foot a tap. “Got the time?”

Hal pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch. “It’s two-thirty. About four hours to sunup. We should get some rest.”

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, like I could sleep after everything that’s just happened.”

Hal shrugged, tucked his knapsack behind his head to serve as a pillow, and leaned back against it, crossing his ankles. “You’ve got first watch, then. Wake me in two hours.” The older man pulled the brim of his baseball hat down over his eyes, and within a few minutes was breathing deeply and regularly, out like a light.

Stiles watched Hal sleep for a moment and marveled at the man’s ability to drift off after such a frantic firefight, especially one in which many friends had been lost. He reminded himself that Hal Dorne was more than a civilian. He’d seen combat—real live combat—before, and had probably learned to catch a few winks whenever the opportunity presented itself. Stiles was too high-strung to consider sleep. His guts were twisted up at the thought of his sailor friends lying dead in a ditch half a mile away.

He wondered how Harris and the others had fared in the storm drain. Though he hated to think it, Stiles realized that, most likely, they had run themselves out of ammunition and been overwhelmed. He shook the thought from his head. No use focusing on it now.

Stiles spent his guard shift slowly patrolling the tiny glen, using his ears more than his eyes. Nothing disturbed the silence of the night, however. Near the end of his shift, birds in the trees began to wake, and their chirping calls heralded the coming dawn.

When the time came, he shook Hal awake. The older man awoke with a start and murmured, “Whuzzat?” before coming fully to his senses. He rubbed at his eyes. “Oh, right. My turn. Anything happen while I was out?”

Stiles shook his head. “Quiet as a grave.”

Hal frowned at the soldier.

“Okay,” Stiles conceded with a small grin, “poor choice of words. You want the Winchester while you’re up?”

“Sure,” said Hal, accepting the antique rifle. He turned it over in his hands. “God, this is a nice piece. Where’d you say you got it, again?”

“Basement of a sporting goods store in Hyattsburg. Consolation prize for getting my ass bitten on the way out,” Stiles said, gesturing at his leg.

“Hell of a prize,” said Hal, checking the chamber. The weapon was loaded. “All right. Catch some sack time.”

“I’m still not sure I can sleep,” said Stiles.

“Try,” said Hal. “And if you can’t, at least get some rest. You’ll need it. You’ll be no good at all if you’re just wandering around in a daze all day.”

Stiles took the older man’s advice, taking his place on the ground next to the knapsack. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind of the death and violence he’d seen over the course of the night. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought, or maybe he’d finally grown more used to the killing than he’d care to admit, but within minutes, Stiles’s chest rose and fell slowly as he drifted off into sleep.

Hal shouldered the Winchester and took up his rounds.

The dark sky began to lighten slowly. First came a graying of the sky to the east, followed by the first rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon. The sun finally broke through, shining brightly. It looked to be a beautiful day, with barely a cloud in the sky.

When Hal’s two hours were up, he shook Stiles awake, who opened his eyes and groaned.

“Did I fall asleep?” asked the soldier.

Hal grinned and nodded. “Slept like a rock. Told you that you needed the rest.”

“Guess you were right.” Stiles stood and stretched with a sigh, spinning his shoulders back and forth to pop his vertebrae.

Hal looked disgusted. “I don’t know how you can stand to do that.”

“Feels great,” said Stiles. “Wakes me up.” He leaned down to touch his toes. “Gotta keep yourself stretched out. Don’t want to pull a muscle at the wrong moment.”

“Hell,” said Hal, “I’m too old and definitely too retired for calisthenics. Don’t let me stop you, though.”

Stiles stretched his arms out. “So what’s the plan, Hal?”

“Well,” said Hal Dorne, unslinging the Winchester and leaning against it, “I figure we head on east into Omaha and try to find this lab we’re after.”

Stiles frowned. “What about the sailors? There might be survivors.”

Hal didn’t say anything for a moment.

“We made it,” Stiles pointed out. “Maybe some others did.”

“If any escaped, they know where to head. Maybe they’ll find their way to the lab, too,” reasoned the retired mechanic. “Some of them have radios. It’s the best we can hope for.”

“We could search for them, now that it’s daylight,” Stiles suggested, but Hal was already waving his hands in a “no-way” gesture.

“Even if they are alive,” Hal said, “they’ll be spread out all over. And remember, our number-one priority is getting you to this laboratory safe, healthy, and in one piece.”

“Speaking of healthy,” said Stiles, “I’m half-starved.”

Hal nodded at his leather knapsack. “Couple tins of potted meat in there. It ain’t great chow, but it’ll fill you up.”

“I’m not complaining,” said Stiles, digging through the pack until he uncovered a couple of cans of the processed meat. He tossed one to Hal, who caught it one-handed.