The Hand That Feeds: A Horror Novel (23 page)

“Leave us the hell alone.
”

John heard his wife’s voice and cringed. Any hope that the men would give up and drive away was now lost.
He assured himself that the knife was ready and prepared to rush the front door. The man on the porch was reinvigorated by Angela’s plea.

“Open the
damn door,” he said. “We have the authority of the United States government and I will pull this house down around you if I have to.”

John started to come to his feet with a rushing approach in mind when a sudden sound from around the house froze him in place. The
noise was subtle, but in the silence of the surrounding farmland, it was enough to get his attention. He pulled back and ran toward the rear of the house. Once he cleared the corner, he discovered the third government man only visible from the waist down, the rest of him was inside the house climbing through the bathroom window.

John reached him as he tried to pull his legs through the window and grabbed a hold of his feet. One quick yank pulled him out to his chest and another dropped him on the ground. The man rolled over and went for a gun holstered under his arm and John reacted with a fist to the
nose. The first hit on the plastic hood covering his face knocked his head back, and then the second splattered blood over his cheeks. John put the blade to his throat and the struggle came to an abrupt end. “Yell and I’ll slit you throat.” He ran his freehand along the man’s side and pulled out a revolver. John took a step back and aimed the gun. “Get up on your knees and face the house.”

Hesitantly
, the man did as he was told. In the dim moonlight, it was difficult to read his face, but he was obviously stalling. Once the man was in position, John hit him on the back of the head as hard as he could with the pistol grip and he fell to the ground in a motionless heap. John dragged him further out into the yard and rushed back to the house, heading toward the carport. He rounded the rear corner and came face to face with another government man coming from the other direction.

John reacted first and managed to hit the man in
his face shield with his revolver. He fell and landed on his back. The moonlight revealed a gun in his hand and John had little time to react as the man brought the weapon to bear. John pulled the trigger and a moment later, the man lay motionless on the ground, a bullet hole in the center of his chest.

“Mike?”

The sound of the man’s voice at the front door kept John’s mind on the moment.

“Mike.
”

The voice
drew closer. John ran back around the house, jumped over the unconscious man out behind the bathroom window and turned the corner on the opposite side of the house.

“Damn it.
” The man’s voice was filled with anger and frustration. “Jerry?”

John heard
someone running into the backyard and guessed he’d found the unconscious man. The yard went still and there was no sound of movement from either side of the house. John readied the revolver and tried to calm his nerves. He took a step toward the backyard and a flash of light pulled his attention to the front of the house. He took cover behind the front corner of the house and peered out toward the road. The light was coming fast and moving in pairs. John swore under his breath and spun around; he was going to have to act fast, reinforcements were on the way.

24

Two cars came to a stop on the road in front of the
driveway, their headlights highlighting the parked car. The car doors opened and in the dark, three figures stood near the driveway entrance. They talked quietly among themselves before one called out.

“Marcus, are you here?”

John didn’t wait for the response. He headed around the back of the house with his revolver held high. He turned the corner and came to an abrupt stop. The remaining government man and the unconscious agent were gone. Someone yelled near the carport.

“
They’re in the house and at least one of them is out here with a gun.”

The situation had quickly
gone from bad to worse. John ran to the end of the house near the carport and hesitantly peeked around. A man in a protective suit stood in front of the house. John rummaged through the dead agent’s suit and found another gun, this one a 9 mm automatic. He dashed to the bathroom window and crawled in. He landed in the bathtub and looked up to find Angela standing over him with the screwdriver in hand. He put his hands up in defense.

“
Hold on.”

“What do they want?” she
asked.

“What do you think they want?” John got out of the tub and brushed her out of the way. “They have to know about
Alex. I bet they stopped at the Davis house and got the story about our little visit.”

She
flung herself on him and put her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest. “Oh, John, you won’t let them take our baby.”

He
tried to look past her and out into the living room at the bay window. He patted her on the back and stroked her hair. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I won’t let them,” he said. She smiled and kissed him. John slid her out of the way and crouched down. He kept a gun in both hands. “Get out in the hallway and keep your head down,” he said as he stepped across the hall and reached the end. He heard her feet shuffle down the hall as he leaned out for a look at the living room. The headlights from the cars lit up the room, but he couldn’t see anyone outside.

“We know you have an infected person in there.”

The voice came across unnaturally loud. John recognized the sound of the bullhorn, however, as best as he could tell, the speaker wasn’t the agent in the plastic suit. He got a glimpse of a break in the headlights and took the opportunity to fire. His shot shattered the largest pane of glass in the bay window and brought most of the adjacent pieces down with it. There was a lot of yelling outside the house and a moment later, John got his response. He ducked back into the hallway as the front of the house was lit up by a violet burst of gunfire.

Shots tore through the front wall as splinters of wood blew off the door. John heard an automatic weapon between the small arms fire
in an attack that lasted a full minute. He was balled up on the floor with his hands over his ears, his guns on the ground near his feet, when the shooting finally stopped. The ringing in his head was constant and he could barely hear himself breathe. He got up to his knees trembling and tried to gather his nerve.

“You alright?”
he asked.

Angela was si
tting against Alex’s door with her arms wrapped around her knees, her legs pulled close to her chest. She didn’t answer, but managed a frightened nod. John picked his guns up and leaned out to get a look at the scene. The entire living room was shot to hell. The television was full of holes and the bay window was gone. Most of the living room floor was covered by small pieces of fluff that used to be contained inside the couch and love seat.

He waited
several minutes before making a move. He didn’t care much about the damage to the house, because he knew if they hoped to survive they would have to make a run for it anyway. The headlights from out front gave him the clue he was searching for. A shadow passed in front of the cars and John aimed and fired. The shadow moved erratically and fell to the ground.

“Damn it
.”

The cry told John he’d hit his target. The result was another heavy thrashing of the front of the house. This time the government agents fired for several minutes, took time to reload and fired again. John waited for the
onslaught to stop and then duck walked down the hall to Angela. She had her face buried between her chest and knees.

“Check on
Alex,” he said. The sound of her son’s name brought a quick response of recognition. Her eyes were wild, but she agreed with a nod. “I’m going to see if I can get a better look from the bedroom.”

John continued his awkward walk past the turn in the hall and headed toward the bedroom. He reached the midpoint of the hall when he heard
Alex’s door open and Angela begin sobbing uncontrollably. He could see the far bedroom wall had not escaped the damage of the hail of bullets, but he knew he had to keep Angela in check if they hoped to survive. He reached Alex’s room and found Angela kneeling over the boy’s decaying body. There was movement in the boy’s hands, but the power that animated his corpse was losing its hold. Even in Alex’s slumbered state, his hands reached for his mother. His groans were reduced to a whimper and his feverish appetite lost with his strength.

“He’s dying,”
she said.

John didn’t have time to explain to her how strange a comment it was. “Stay here with him
, but keep down,” he said, and then headed back out into the hallway. “If they come through the door, I’m not going to be able to hold them off.” He reached the end of the hall and walked to his bedroom. From a crouched position, he made out the agents around the cars, each in a hidden, defensive position. He counted four men and as best as he could remember, that left one somewhere out of sight. One of the men ran toward the house and John lost him from the window.

“The house is surrounded.”

John heard them and understood where the other man went. The chances of ever getting out of the house were growing dimmer by the minute. He darted back through the house and reached the back door. Not taking the time to think about what he was doing, he flung the door open, and jumped out into the backyard.

Gunfire
erupted the second he broke away from the house. Lights flashed on his left and right as small arms fire echoed off the house. John’s heart beat wildly in his throat as he desperately tried to control the fear consuming his mind. He fired at both ends of the house unable to focus his sights on any one target.

The
firefight lasted for another few seconds before everything fell silent. John was on his knees in the grass facing the rear of the house. He could see shapes moving on either side of the house and figured both men were still alive. He fell forward lying in the grass and waited. His chance came moments later when the figure near the carport took a step out behind the house. His attention was on the open back door and he was making a straight line for it. John took aim as best he could in the dark and pulled the trigger three times. The first shot hit the house, the second directly into the man’s leg, and the final trigger pull ended with a dull click.

John left the gun lying in the grass as he rolled away from his position. He took aim at the man
with his 9 mm as he tried to limp his way back to the side of the house. He saw from the corner of his eye, the second man step out and John instinctively pulled his face toward the ground and wrapped his arms around his head. The man fired several times, covering his companions escape. The shots flew wild, but one found its mark, grazing John along his shoulder. The night lit up from constant fire as they shot back and forth at one another. John’s arm felt like it was on fire as warm blood soaked through his shirt. He felt the strength in his arm going, but managed to keep his gun level.

Neither
government agent kept their aim well enough to hit anything. John watched both men disappear, and then waited in the grass, listening to the silence until the subtle sounds of heated conversation echoed around the house. Convinced it was safe enough to move; John struggled to get to his feet and rushed for the rear of the house.  He let his back slam against the wall beside the open bathroom window. He heard the light whimpering of his wife nearby.

“I’m okay,” he
said.

“John?”

“Stay in the hallway and keep your head down,” he paused, “first close this damn window.”

She said something between sobs
, but he couldn’t make it out.

“Just close the window.”

He didn’t wait to see if she would do it. He slid his back along the wall, reached the edge of the house opposite the carport, and listened. The wind picked up and he swore he heard someone step on a twig, but after several tense seconds, he told himself it was all in his head. He took a quick peek and rushed around the corner of the house with the gun at the ready, and found nothing there but the dying bushes near the storm cellar doors. He could hear them now, gathered near the front of the house.

“That son of a bitch shot me,
” one man said.

“Stop your belly aching,” another said.

They continued to talk, but lower than John could make out. The fear in his heart kept him from looking around the corner; sure, he would catch a bullet directly in the face. Not sure what he could do outside, he headed around to the back of the house and as he expected, found the bathroom window still wide open. He tucked the gun in his pocket and pulled himself up.

H
e was suspended with half of his body through the window when the screams started. The shriek which he identified at once to be Angela was followed quickly by a barrage of punches. She’d struck him several times in the back of the head before he could get a word out.

“It’s me,
” he said, screaming, “stop hitting me.”

Angela let two more fists fly before she recognized the voice enough to stop. “What the hell are you doing climbing through the window?”

John stood up and brushed himself off. “I live here, remember?” He peered out into the living room from the bathroom doorway to take in the destruction. “At least I used to.”

“Don’t leave me in here
.”

He
brushed her off with a wave of his hand and looked down the hall at Alex’s room. The door was ajar and instantly he felt a shiver run up his spine. The low light in the house only reached the middle of the hall and left the rest cloaked in darkness. He listened to the men outside arguing whether they should kick in the door, but he couldn’t pull himself from the hall.

He stepped out onto the hardwood floor
at a deathly slow pace focused on Alex’s room. His hands shook as he reached out ahead of his steps, anticipating the bedroom doorknob. Thoughts of his decomposing son grabbing him filled his mind, but he did not stop. A few steps away and the sound of the low guttural moans crept out through the open door.

H
is fingers wrapped around the cold knob and John could see into the room. His eyes went to the floor as a slow, but steady movement drew his attention. The light from the cracks in the window revealed the boy lying face down, arms stretched out as he tried to move. His deaths speak increased as his father became visible and he reached out with one hand and tried to drag his body toward the door.

John slid the door closed
, but kept his hand on the knob. For a moment, he forgot about the men outside and his wife looking out through the bathroom door behind him. He was struck by the fear he’d lost in the past few days and the epidemic of the walking dead weighed on him like never before. He was not afraid for himself, but more so afraid of what he might do in the days ahead.

“John.” Angela’s voice was calm
and measured. “What do we do?”

He took a slow
, deep breath before turning around. Removing the gun from his pocket, he checked the clip.

“We have to get out of here
,” he said.

“How do we do that?”

He headed toward the end of the hall, stopped for a second to kiss her, and then positioned himself against the wall. “We have to get rid of them first. Go and lie down in the bathtub and don’t get up until I come and get you.”

She tried to ask another question
, but the look he gave her froze her dead in her tracks. Angela closed the bathroom door and John heard her pull back the shower curtain. He peeked out from the hall and keyed in on an ongoing conversation outside.

“Try them again,” one man said.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

John could see shadows moving near the door
, but nothing else. He focused on something near the camper truck in the driveway. The man behind the truck was tall enough to reach up and touch the top of the camper without trying. He was holding something to the side of his face.

“There’s no damn signal anywhere out here,” the tall man
said.

“Keep trying,
” another man replied.

John knew his only chance of getting away
depended on getting out of the current predicament. If he meant to take the old hunting trail into Nebraska, he would have to do it without anyone ever knowing. He took aim at the end of the camper and waited. The tall figure swayed in and out of sight as he worked at getting reception on the cell phone. John held his aim and waited until the tall man took a step away from the truck, and then he fired.