Voodoo Plague - 01 (12 page)

The tires
screamed in protest and left smoking black marks on the pavement as I held the
brakes down, finally stopping but not before we plowed into the back of a herd
of infected so large that we couldn’t see the far edge.

“Oh, shit,” I
heard Rachel say under her breath as thousands of heads snapped around in our direction
and hands started beating on the truck.  I could only see males around us, and
for as clumsy and slow as they are they were quickly surrounding us and
pressing in.  We would rapidly be enveloped in such a large mass and I was
afraid the truck wouldn’t be able to move.

Throwing the
truck in reverse I stomped on the throttle and the big diesel roared as we
surged backwards.  We had slid a few feet into the herd when we stopped and I
kept the throttle down and crashed through and over bodies until we reached
clear pavement.  With thirty yards of open space now in front of us I spun the
wheel and turned us sideways in the road, stopping with the back bumper against
the berm that rose up from the edge of the shoulder and grabbed the gear
selector to put the truck in drive.

I tugged, but
the lever didn’t move.  Staring dumbly at the little red needle that indicated
the gear I pulled harder with no luck.  I hammered the lever with the palm of
my hand trying to move it to P or D, I didn’t care which, but it wasn’t
moving.  The truck was stuck in reverse and we were backed up against a berm of
rocky soil.  Didn’t look like the truck was going anywhere.

“Get us out of
here!”  The stress in Rachel’s voice snapped my attention to the herd of
infected that were lumbering towards us, now only twenty yards away.

I made one last
desperate attempt to move the gear selector, but it was stuck fast in reverse. 
Probably a two dollar pin in the transmission linkage, but it didn’t matter
what the cause was.

Popping my door
open I jumped down to the pavement, glad that I’d had the foresight to have
Rachel and I load all our magazines into the tactical vests we were wearing. 
While Rachel scrambled across the seat and out my open door I yanked the back
door open and grabbed our back packs, shrugging into mine quickly then helping
Rachel into hers.  I grabbed the shotgun out of the front seat, slammed the
door and we started running just as the faster males reached the far side of
the truck.

I didn’t know
where we were going, just knew that we had to get away from the herd before any
females spotted us.  Loaded like we were there was no way we could outrun
them. 

Setting a steady
fast jogging pace that would put distance quickly between us and the herd we
headed back east.  I ran with my assault rifle slung across my back and the
shotgun held ready across my chest.  The Mossberg was loaded with buckshot
alternating with slugs and any infected I engaged would go down with one shot. 
The kinetic energy of either buckshot or slugs delivered at close range would
be enough to stop anything smaller than a grizzly bear, and the bear would
think twice about continuing an attack.

We opened some
distance between us and the herd, Rachel slowing when we had a good hundred
yard buffer.

“Don’t slow
down,” I said without breaking stride.  “There’s got to be females in that herd
and we need to get as far away as fast as possible.”

As if my warning
had been prophetic there was a scream from behind us that made the hair on my
arms stand on end.  I glanced over my shoulder to see two females sprinting
after us.  They must have been further up in the herd when we first made
contact and it took them this long to force their way through the crush of
bodies and break out into the open where their speed made them such dangerous
hunters.

"Keep
going,” I shouted to Rachel as I reversed directions and raised the shotgun.

The lead female
was about twenty five yards away when I fired the first round of buckshot.  The
mass of BB sized pellets slammed into her chest and very nearly stopped her
cold in her tracks.  She stumbled then fell to the pavement without a sound.  I
racked the shotgun slide, ejecting the spent shell which hit the asphalt with a
hollow plastic sound then feeding the next shell into the chamber.  This was a
slug and I fired at the second female that was racing towards me and no more
than twenty yards away.

The slug tore
into her left shoulder causing damage that would have put any normal person
down and most likely out for good.  Her body jerked to the left with the impact
and when she turned back I could see that her left arm was being held to her
shoulder by only a few tendons and strings of flesh.  The slug had completely
destroyed the bone and muscle at the socket, but other than momentarily slowing
from the impact she ignored the wound and continued on.

I racked the
slide again, firing at no more than five yards.  This shell was buckshot and
the full force of the blast hit her in the face.  Her face disappeared and most
of her head disintegrated, her body continuing with forward momentum until it
came to rest on the pavement at my feet. 

I noted the
lesson about severe injuries not being enough to stop an infected, scanned for
more females then turned and ran after Rachel.  I ran at a fast pace and caught
her quickly, passing her and urging her to run faster to match my pace.

Rachel looked
like she was in good shape, but I didn’t know if that was dancing muscle with
poor cardio conditioning to back it up.  So far she was staying with me, but we
hadn’t run a quarter of a mile yet and adrenalin will carry you a good distance
before poor conditioning becomes evident.

Ahead of us
several males stumbled out of the woods, most of them losing their balance and
falling onto the pavement before stumbling to their feet and coming towards the
sound we were making as we ran down the middle of the road.

“Behind me,” I
said to Rachel as we approached the group.  They were spread out just enough to
effectively cover the road from shoulder to shoulder, and I didn’t want to take
us into the woods.

Rachel fell in
close behind me as we neared the first infected, a scrawny man wearing nothing
but filthy white underwear.  Without breaking stride I smashed the shotgun
barrel into the side of his head, knocking him to the side and to his knees. 
The group started to collapse in on us as I hit two more infected with the
shotgun.  We were almost clear when I heard a clatter and cry from Rachel.

Stopping and
spinning around I saw her on the ground.  One of the infected I had knocked down
had grabbed her ankle and was trying to pull her to him with grunts and hisses
as she kicked at his head with her free foot.  She couldn’t get a good angle
and the kicks were bouncing off with apparently no effect.

I fired the
shotgun at an infected coming at me with his arms raised like a kid pretending
to be a Halloween ghost.  His head dissolved in a spray of blood and bone from
the heavy shotgun slug and I snapped a kick into the chest of another infected
that was shambling at me.  He fell backwards and I stepped over the infected
that had grabbed Rachel, pulled my pistol and fired a single shot into his
head.

The grip on
Rachel’s ankle immediately loosened and she kicked free and scrambled to her
feet.  We stood back to back at the center of a group of eight infected.  I had
wanted to move quickly and conserve ammo, but the scream of an approaching
female spurred me to action. Raising the pistol I fired five shots and five
bodies hit the ground like sacks of wet sand.

“Move!”  I
shouted to Rachel and we ran east again.  Another scream from behind lent wings
to our feet and Rachel began to pull away from me, long hair flying behind her
in the wind.  I made a mental note to have her tie her hair up in a bun so an
infected couldn’t get a handful of it and drag her to the ground, then I had to
spin around to fight when another female screamed right behind us.

The female had
been closer than I thought and as I turned I was hit in the chest by a body
that knocked me flat on my back, whooshing all my breath out of my lungs.  I
landed with the shotgun across my chest and I was able to get it up and between
me and the snapping teeth of the female infected that was on top of me.  I
pushed for all I was worth and she flipped backwards off of me.

I scrabbled
around on the ground, trying to get my breath and my feet back under me.  I had
only risen to a knee when the female launched at me again.  Twisting to the
side I clubbed her with the shotgun and knocked her to the ground in a tangle
of limbs.  As she struggled to get back to her feet Rachel stepped behind her
and shot her in the back of the head with her 9mm pistol.  The body flopped to
the ground and twitched once then lay still.

Behind us the
herd was closing the distance, now down to less than fifty yards.  More males
were coming out of the woods and behind the leading edge of the herd I could
hear multiple screams from females as they worked their way towards us. 
Picking myself up I started running again, following Rachel who didn’t need to
be told this time. 

We ran for what
felt like an hour but was actually probably closer to ten minutes.  The herd
still followed, but was dropping further and further behind.  The occasional
male was still coming out of the woods, but we were able to either dodge them
or knock them aside and keep up our pace.

We crested a
rise and I called a brief halt to survey our situation.  Behind us a good half
a mile was the leading edge of the herd that was in pursuit.  Between us and
the herd were a few dozen lumbering males that had stumbled out of the woods. 
What concerned me most were the figures out in front of the herd that were
sprinting towards us.  I couldn’t make out details at the distance, but they
had to be female infected, and I counted at least twenty of them before I
turned and started running again.

Twenty or more
females would run us to ground and overwhelm us if we were caught in the open. 
I’m good with a gun, but I don’t know anyone that’s good enough to fend off
that many attackers on the open road.  We needed somewhere to not only make a
defense, but hopefully hide from the herd so that we didn’t become trapped.

Ahead I could
see a road that cut into the woods at a 90 degree angle and a small blue sign
with white lettering.  I wasn’t close enough to read the sign, but I remembered
passing it earlier and that it was a road to a marina on a large lake.  The
same lake I had seen on the map that we were trying to get around.

I pointed at the
road and Rachel nodded her head in agreement or understanding.  I didn’t really
care which one at the moment.  As we approached the intersection the shoulder
widened out into a level, grassy field.  Cutting the corner off the
intersection we charged into the field.  I was slowing, but not as much as
Rachel who was starting to drop behind.  Between weapons, ammo and packs I had
at least one hundred pounds distributed across my body, and Rachel probably had
close to seventy.  I used to train with this kind of weight, but it had been a
lot of years.

We cleared the
field and pounded back onto the pavement just as a chorus of screams broke out
behind us.  I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw a group of females that
had cleared the rise in the road and was in hot pursuit.  I dug deep and pushed
harder, taking advantage of the slight downhill slope of the road as it dropped
down to the lake.  Rachel matched my pace but she was breathing like a steam
engine and I knew she didn’t have many reserves left.

Several infected
and three shotgun blasts later we pounded around a curve in the road and I
dropped the Mossberg on the pavement.  It was empty and I needed to shed some
weight.  I brought the assault rifle around to my front, made sure the safety
was off and ran for all I was worth.

Screams behind
us sounded much closer than I would have thought possible, but I didn’t want to
lose speed by looking back.  Ahead we could see the road ending in a large
marina, over a hundred boats moored on the blue lake.

More screams and
I knew we’d have to fight.  The females were closing and would be on us before
we made the marina.

“Find a boat and
get it started,” I yelled to Rachel as I started to slow.

“What are you
doing?”  She looked over her shoulder at me, terror in her eyes.

“Buying us
time.  Now go.  I’ll be right behind you.”

I skidded to a
stop, turned and dropped to my right knee as I brought the rifle up.  There
were nine females in close pursuit, danger close as we used to say, a larger
group perhaps another two hundred yards behind them.

Just like I’d
been trained so many years ago, I kept both eyes open, brought the rifle up and
acquired my first target at which I immediately fired.  The closest female
dropped to the pavement, a neat red hole in her forehead.  I acquired my next
target and fired, noting in my mind that it was down as I was already acquiring
my next target.

I fired a total
of eleven rounds to bring down nine infected with head shots, with the last one
dropping close enough to me that I could smell the stench coming off its body. 
Damn fine shooting if I say so myself.

I glanced over
my shoulder and saw Rachel approaching a large white cabin cruiser, pull her
pistol and shoot an infected before boarding.  We needed more time.  I scanned
the area around me and made note of several males dressed in dirty coveralls that
were approaching from my left.  I had time to deal with them a little later. 
Right now I had more females coming in fast.

I started
picking targets and putting them down, occasionally having to use a second shot
to do the job.  Hey, you try hitting something the size of a human head that is
running at you full speed.  It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies.

I had dropped
another dozen females when I had to change magazines.  Old training paid off
and I swapped mags in under a second and resumed firing.  I was stopping a lot
of infected, but I wasn’t holding my own.  The females were too many and too
fast for one shooter to hold off indefinitely.  Slowly, the distance shrank
until I was getting nervous.  I hadn’t forgotten the males approaching from my
left, but I couldn’t take my attention off the females.  I sent five more
rounds downrange then heard the sweetest sound I could imagine, a boat horn.