Hannah and Brandon were nowhere to be seen. Riley had been cut off from them when the jeep full of dead soldiers appeared out of nowhere.
Riley cursed himself for leading his family here. There shouldn’t have been a road at all, not this far out in the country, much less a major one littered with the ruins of cars and trucks. The only things that should have been up there were trees and dirt trails. Riley didn’t have the faintest idea where the road led, but it had seemed safe. Figuring they didn’t have time to follow it in the woods until they could cut around, he chose to walk it. Now he was paying the price.
He heard the crack of Hannah’s .30-.06 somewhere in the distance. Damn the woman! he thought. If she and Brandon had reached the trees, they should’ve just kept going; they shouldn’t have stopped to save him.
Left without an alternative, he leaned around the end of the truck to see what was happening on the road. One of the dead stood several yards away, focusing its AK-47 on the tree line. Riley’s military training took over, and he seized the chance. His M-16 opened up, sending a stream of rounds into the dead thing’s chest and up its torso until, with a wet popping sound, the corpse’s rotting head burst like a melon, spewing brain matter onto the road below its feet. Its body spun, headless, and dropped. Riley was on his feet and running for a better vantage point before the body hit the ground. He’d only seen three of the things, and he figured he could handle them as long as he knew Hannah and Brandon were safe. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Riley felt fire tear into his shoulder, and the impact knocked him down. His rifle went skidding away from him. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the dead man who’d shot him. The thing charged forward and lowered its rifle, to which was attached some kind of blade.
Riley didn’t move, waited to the last possible second and grabbed for the weapon as the thing tried to spear him with it.
Close combat with the dead was extremely dangerous. A bite, or sometimes just a scratch from their nails, was enough to infect a person with the lethal virus, or evil spirit, or whatever it was that gave the dead life.
Taking his opponent by surprise, Riley ripped the weapon from its hands and sent the creature sprawling to the pavement beside him. It rolled at him, biting and clawing for his flesh. The thing never saw him draw the .45 automatic. He blew the brains out the back of its head.
“Hannah!” Riley screamed, praying for an answer.
In the distance, the monsters’ jeep roared to life. Riley scrambled for his gun, then stopped and let out a whoosh of breath as the vehicle retreated. The road fell silent.
Blood stained the front of his shirt, leaking from the wound on his shoulder, but he didn’t feel it. He bolted, his legs pounding beneath him, to where he’d heard the shot from Hannah’s rifle. He skidded to a halt as he reached the tree line and saw Hannah in the dirt. His heart felt like it stopped beating as she looked up at him, revealing the tears on her cheeks, the blood on her hands. She was kneeling over Brandon, who lay in a growing puddle of red.
Spots engulfed Riley’s vision, and Hannah watched him collapse.
9
Scott and David put on a show for the two guards accompanying them outside the breeding center. They held hands and acted eager to reach a place in the hills where they could be together intimately. The guards led them about a mile and a half from the compound before the group stopped and one of the dead men pulled out a stopwatch from its pocket. “This is as far as we’re going,” the guard informed them, and he started the watch. “You better get to it. The clock is ticking.”
“You’re going to watch us?” David asked, horrified. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Tough,” the other guard grunted. “Get to jerking each other off or whatever so we can get back.”
“What’s the matter?” Scott laughed. “Are you horny too? Wanna join us?”
The guard blinked his single eyelid while the other laughed at him. Scott sprang forward, grabbing the laughing guard’s head and twisting it around so fast the neck broke with a sharp crack. It wouldn’t kill the dead man, but breaking his neck would immobilize him and leave him helpless.
The remaining guard raised the barrel of its weapon toward Scott, tightening its finger on the trigger, but David tackled the dead man; they went down in a mess of tangled limbs as the guard’s rifle blazed away.
Scott instinctively ducked out of the line of fire and snatched up the rifle of the guard he’d killed. He whirled to see David lying atop the other guard, his intestines scattered everywhere. The burst from the thing’s weapon must have disemboweled him.
Scott squeezed the trigger of his rifle and held it, emptying the clip into David’s corpse and the guard below. Done, he tossed the rifle aside. Neither David nor the guard would be getting up again.
He felt a pang of loss and guilt over David’s sacrifice, but he didn’t have time to think about it—the whole compound must have heard the brief battle. So Scott sprinted into the trees and didn’t look back.
10
O’Neil and Captain Steven studied the map spread out on the table before them. Steven stabbed at a point on the map with his finger. “We’ll put in here.”
“South Carolina?” O’Neil asked.
“Why not? This port here is out of the way in terms of the old commercial traffic routes, and it’s close enough for us to reach it within two days.”
“It’ll still be guarded. If nothing else there’ll be those things all over the docks. I don’t like the idea of taking the Queen that close to land again.”
Steven smiled. “We’re not. Not this time. We’ll sail in just close enough for the lifeboats to make it ashore.”
O’Neil looked at the captain and blinked, completely baffled.
“Stealth, Mr. O’Neil. It’s something we haven’t tried before. If we go in at night instead of all guns blazing, the Queen herself may still face an attack, but the dead may not notice our smaller boats until we’ve had time to do everything we need for once.” Steven saw the way O’Neil was glaring at him. “Yes, it’s more of a risk to the raiding party if the dead do notice them, and it’ll mean less supplies brought back overall because we won’t be loading straight onto the Queen, but I’m willing to take the gamble in hopes that it will save us some lives. If it works, it’ll give the raiding party a better edge than they’ve ever had before, and, well… if the Queen does become engaged, I think she can handle herself. We have before, and we’ll do so many more times, I’m sure.”
“Sir,” O’Neil said, “I think you should know most of the crew and the people onboard still just want us to take some little island, put down some roots, and finally get off the waves.”
Steven grinned. “No, our mobility is what’s keeping us alive, Mr. O’Neil. Perhaps you should remind these people that if we lose it, we’ve lost the war.”
O’Neil changed the subject, avoiding an argument. “How many men will be needed for the lifeboats in this plan of yours?”
“I was thinking about sixteen, total. That should give them the firepower and the free hands they’ll need.”
“But who’s going to lead them?” O’Neil asked.
11
Scott hadn’t stopped moving for nearly twelve hours, pushing his underfed and exhausted body far beyond its limits. He nearly fell into a tree, grabbing its bark to keep his balance, but finally he dropped to his knees and vomited into the wet grass.