August Burning (Book 2): Survival Read online

  AUGUST BURNING: Survival

  By Tyler Lahey

  Copyright © 2016 Tyler Lahey

  All rights reserved

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Prologue

  150 days after Outbreak. Cold Spring, Appalachia.

  The leaves danced as they fell.

  Through the red October twilight emerged four figures, moving fast through the trees. The survivors were frenzied; stricken. Their shadowy silhouettes cut violently through the dying underbrush. A sinister crash behind them broke the sound of their footsteps, and all save their leader threw a terrified glance behind. The survivors were being hunted.

  “How far?” the woman whispered hoarsely, her breath ragged as she pumped her limbs. She felt her lungs crying out and didn’t know how much longer she would last.

  “Comin’ up on the road,” the leader responded with a muffled voice, the starlight glinting off his gas mask. “Give them the signal. Do it now!”

  A third survivor drew a gun from his backpack silently, and fired it into the air as they sprinted.

  The gun thumped, and belched a little canister skyward.

  A red flare, first almost lost against the ominous sky, arced into the deepening night. Its crimson light stretched to twinkle far below in the neatly organized rows of colonial houses. The straggling survivors contemplated them with sickening nostalgia while he heaved. Their great porches and doors were broken and abandoned. Once bright colors were no longer.

  The blackness of the deeper woods faded as the oaks and maples blended into the remains of a little town nestled in the forest. The four survivors flew through the backyard of an abandoned house, over a fence, and burst out onto the main road of town.

  The runners did not pause before the large, lightly colored houses lining the road. Their kitchens were silent, their windows shattered.

  Seven pursuing figures crashed through the picket fence behind the runners. Elvis couldn’t resist, though he knew he should have. He craned his neck back. The pursuers’ movements were uncanny, sickeningly unnatural. It was as if they had learned to move all over again, forsaking human experience. Humans, they were no longer. The predators loped and snarled in a vicious pack, bent on sinking their rotting teeth into lean flesh.

  They were the things from his childhood nightmares, shadows that snarled and sprinted. How had it gone so wrong? Where were the others? Where were Bennett and Liam to help him? How had it gone so wrong?

  The four survivors’ boots thudding on the cracked pavement became the sole sounds of existence. Fear compelled them forward. As they moved down the deserted main street of town, lined with great trees intent on shedding dying leaves, the old high school came into view.

  Off the main road, the runners cut a muddy trail hard left and began racing down the little driveway, past the rotting wooden church. In their path, two hundred yards off, lay their sanctuary and the promise of salvation.

  The man on point, labored in his breathing, waved his arms at the three-storied structure. There was no movement on the roof. Elvis swore to himself. Where were the guards? But the front doors were ajar.

  Elvis hesitated and cried out, stumbling within sight of opened doors radiating warm yellow light. His camouflaged pants ground against the asphalt, tearing and grinding against his perpetually soft flesh. His sack of canned food fell, and they clattered against the concrete next to his exhausted body. There would have been tears in his eyes had he not been so horrified. He had failed them.

  He would not be a coward again; he had sworn it would never happen twice. Elvis tried to rise, feeling the cold sweat soaking the second-hand fatigues he wore. His right leg gave out and he felt his heart thundering in his chest. The shadows that chased him were illuminated as they approached the Citadel’s torches. The infected were closing in.

  Just ahead of him, Elvis heard a voice cry out. “We have to go back for him!”

  “Adira, no!” Elvis heard, faintly. He looked up. He saw a flash of black hair, and he tingled as a girl’s scent struck him. When Elvis breathed again, the smell of rotting flesh assaulted his nostrils as the assailants drew closer still.

  “Don’t make me die for you,” Adira said, her dark eyes glittering. She tugged him to his feet, and Elvis began stumbling towards the torchlight.

  Suddenly a gas mask was four inches from his face, “Move! They’re right on us, MOVE!” Elvis looked back and saw Jaxton spin on his heel. His friend positioned the assault rifle flush with his shoulder and discharged the weapon five times in rapid succession. Before Elvis could look again, Jaxton was beside him, urging them forward. Suddenly, Jaxton faltered.

  “Fuck. I’m out. Adira, thin the herd.”

  Elvis saw the girl’s jet-black ponytail spin as she rested one of her kneepads on the pavement. Her own weapon boomed and kicked back, stalling the progenies of nature’s holocaust a bit longer. Still they came.

  Elvis was gripped by strong hands from behind, and shoved towards the warm light. Racing towards the tones of yellow spilling out of open doors, he wanted to scream from joy. He had made it!

  Then he heard screaming behind him, and he hesitated. “I’m out! Jax, I’m out!” He heard, shrill in the night air.

  Elvis looked back.

  Jaxton was there, with Adira. He had placed himself in front of her, deliberately. “Stay back! You’re not masked!” The masked figure thundered, drawing a gleaming tomahawk from his right thigh. He was armored from head to foot, a vicious savage from another time. Taking a step towards the looming shadows, Jaxton screamed at the dark-haired girl to run.

  Elvis would not shame himself again. He had to help. Snatching the cold pistol from his belt, he took a step forward. He saw Jaxton was there, at the fore, where the power of the torchlight flickered and struggled against the night. But then Elvis saw the infected, pounding across the pavement. There were still five of them, a stone’s throw away in the darkness. Their teeth flashed white and red against mottled skin. Elvis felt his knees trembling even as he saw Adira take her place beside Jaxton, standing against the onslaught with her own rusted hatchet.

  Snarling figures fell upon his friends in the autumn night. Their weapons flashed and trembled as they punched into dying flesh and fragile bones. Jaxton roared, using his muscled frame to bury the axe-head into an infected’s throbbing neck. Elvis inhaled sharply as he saw another infected grip Jaxton’s shoulder with two hands and open its greedy mouth. It never closed. Adira’s rusted hatchet shattered the bloated man’s jaw. As the creature dropped to the pavement, Adira slammed her boot-heel on the prey, finishing the job with a bone-chilling crunch. Elvis saw Jaxton strike another with his makeshift chainmail glove as it appeared from the shadows, before Elvis heard a cry of panic from within his friend’s black gas mask.

  Elvis backpedaled; he couldn’t do it. His friends were going to die. He had to shut the doors. The handle felt cold to his touch as he yanked it. As the door swung it closed, there was a commotion above. Stealing back outside, Elvis craned his neck. There were men and women on the roof, their long-rifles extended over the lip with eager barrels.

  “CUT THEM DOWN!” Someone roare
d.

  The parking lot boomed and rolled from the hail of lead. Elvis saw the infected fall and tumble at his friends’ cracked leather boots, thirty feet away.

  Silence. The tension flooded out of the air as quickly as it had arrived. Into the vacuum poured relief and exaltation. Jaxton and Adira embraced fiercely, even as the dead littered their feet in the cold night.

  “You left their side,” Elvis heard behind him. It was a voice laced with venom. The doorway was crowded with survivors, tattered and filthy. Another spat on the ground. Their eyes were full of malice as they regarded him, men and women together.

  Elvis stepped out and intercepted Jaxton and Adira as they approached the safety of the school. The girl tugged down the black scarf covering her mouth, and her lips were tight. Her slender right hand held the dripping tomahawk far away from her body.

  “Adira, you came back for me. Jesus I don’t know what to say. I-“

  The dark-eyed girl interrupted him, and her pace did not falter. “Don’t say anything.”

  Elvis looked down, feeling the eyes of the others on his back. Harley would be there, disgusted at his cowardice, he was sure. The cold pistol felt unnatural in his hand; he had never fired it.

  One of the infected struggled still. It began crawling its way forward, towards the precious light. It dug filthy fingernails into the asphalt. They snapped and bled, making Elvis nauseous. He suddenly remembered the alcohol and painkillers he had stashed under his cot, and felt a wave of momentary relief.

  “Target!” A rooftop sniper shouted gravelly.

  Elvis felt Jaxton at his side, his bulky frame made larger by the extensive body armor, painted black. In a single motion he ripped off his skullcap and gas mask, revealing a shaggy head of oily brown hair.

  Elvis saw Jaxton turned to face him, distant grey eyes set in a hard face. “Kill him,” his friend said softly.

  Elvis sputtered and hesitated, then prepared to step forward. He was too slow. Elvis felt the pistol snatched from his shivering hand. He watched Jaxton’s boots clicking on the pavement before him. The armored form broke off from safety of the light to advance steadily toward the crawling figure. The wounded crawler showed no sign of fear at the approach of the armed man. In one swift motion, the man with faded grey eyes repositioned the sidearm and flicked off the safety. He turned to Elvis, who could scarcely meet that icy gaze. Without looking down, Jaxton squeezed the trigger, and the shot echoed in the October sky.

  The survivors hurried inside the safety of the school. The corpses, they left to the frigid night.

  Chapter One

  155 days after Outbreak

  The truck shook and belched gutturally. Its flatbed was loaded down with four survivors, armed and gaunt. Bennett clutched the ancient wheel, his hands appreciating the smooth leather. They had figured out how to siphon gas from stalled cars, and it had paid off mightily. Bennett had been lucky; he had found a pickup without an electronic chip.

  Bennett wrenched the wheel as the truck bumped noisily through a trash pile. He had been day-dreaming again, of those glittering eyes and black hair. “Fuck Jaxton,” he whispered under his breath. Bennett looked in the rear-view. There were balding Joseph, and pudgy Leeroy, two idiots that he had managed to pull away from the King, the Emperor, the Lord, whatever it is Jaxton was now. Two others had joined Bennett’s expedition, a couple of lovebirds more interested in linking up with the old society than starting a new one. And Elvis.

  “How do you feel?”

  Elvis grunted his response, his pale face a mask of nausea and lethargy. He rose a flask to his lips before Bennett snatched it away. “Enough of that.”

  The window behind slid open and a friendly face popped through. “How far to the bridge?”

  “Just ahead,” Bennett replied. Joseph nodded his approval and checked his compound bow with gloved hands. A quiver of razor tipped hunting arrows was slung across his back.

  The truck sped down deserted two lane roads, past sagging general stores and colonial houses with faded porch paint. Their deck-swings floated lazily in the autumn breeze. The western wall of the valley was drawing near. Bennett could see it through the dying leaves above him as the car strained to accommodate the growing incline. The houses faded swiftly, till the sole scenery became a collage of autumn colors. The incline pressed up aggressively as the truck passed into a deep gorge that cut through the ridge. The slopes rose on either side of them, and the road became winding, hugging a river that gurgled happily one hundred feet below.

  Bennett swerved the truck to avoid the collection of abandoned cars that littered the town. The bridge appeared before them. Its wrought iron construction looked dated, Bennett noticed. A relic from the coal mining days. He eased the classic Chevy to a stop, and his crew dismounted.

  Elvis hooked his head over the side, mesmerized by the churning white waters that passed below.

  “This is the edge of town. Follow this road, you’ll pass through the western ridge and emerge to flat ground,” Bennett indicated the opposite bank with his shotgun.

  Leeroy looked through his scope, scanning the wooded bank opposite. “What kind of roads are there, beyond the ridge?”

  Bennett shivered, unable to shake the creepiness that Leeroy made him feel. Was it the pasty skin? Or the way he slept with several guns even inside the Citadel? “The main north-south highway has a junction there. Could get to Ohio in…2 and half hours making good time back in the day.”

  “We don’t want to go to Ohio,” Joseph said, fitting an arrow to his bow.

  Bennett noted the dissent with annoyance. “No? It’s gotta be more clear than east.”

  “I remember the last TV report I ever saw, in mid-June. The infected had reached the Great Lakes.”

  Bennett frowned. “Well. There have to be less infected in the western states than here. We’ll get a group together, get the best supplies and vehicles, and make a run.”

  Leeroy hawked a wad of spit over the wrought iron bars. “You think Jaxton is guna let you do that?”

  Bennett set his teeth together angrily. “Let’s move. We still need to scout it out.” Elvis made no motion to move from the iron bars. “Alright Elvis, watch our rear,” Bennett snapped. He needed better followers if he was going to compete with his steely-eyed former best friend.

  Bennett nodded encouragement to the younger couple behind him. The wide-eyed girl clutched an ancient .22 caliber rifle with sweaty hands. Her boyfriend had eager eyes. He checked his pistol with elaborate and dramatic care, then said, “C’mon babe.”

  Bennett suppressed a chuckle and strode forward. The group passed over the bridge and began an assent up the opposite bank. The trees hugged the road, pressing their boughs over the top to create a canopy of dying foliage. The space in the natural tunnel was muggy, despite the chilly day. Bennett breathed in deep. That smell of death was still there, sickly sweet. He shot a glance backwards; the bridge was just barely visible through the collage.

  “Get down.” Joseph hissed. The company dropped to their bellies. Joseph indicated the forest to their right. Stalking through the trees, there were several infected, walking absent mindedly, like predators near starvation and too hungry to take any care of the world around them. Bennett counted six, all walking. Their clothes were tattered and decayed, as was their flesh. Any hair they had was thin, filthy, and matted. Leeroy was silent, his finger resting calmly on the trigger of his massive rifle. The annoying boyfriend crawled closer. “Let’s take them out,” he hissed. His girlfriend opened her nervous mouth behind him but he cut her off, chest puffed up with machismo, “I’ve got a full clip.”

  Bennett sized the idiot up momentarily. “No.” He signaled the others: back to the truck. The group drew to its feet and paced slowly back down the asphalt, taking care not to scrape their boots on the loose gravel. All save one. The haughty boyfriend strode forward like a peacock displaying its plumage.

  Bennett growled at him. There was a commotion on the asphalt behind the
m. A lone infected had stumbled onto the road. It regarded them with uncannily dead eyes, not yet processing what stood before it.

  A chilly breeze rustled the thin strands of hair atop the sick matron’s head. As the leaves rustled above, a razor tipped arrow tore through her left shoulder, and she staggered back. Joseph swore softly, and nocked another arrow.

  Leeroy raised his rifle. “Give me the word,” he whispered greedily, sweat collecting on the peach fuzz growing on his upper lip.

  “Not yet,” Joseph whispered hoarsely, drawing the bowstring back with small, chiseled muscles. The second arrow struck the foe straight in the breastplate, and she fell.

  “Move!” Bennett hissed. The group took off down the road, bridge in sight ahead.

  It happened too quickly to stop. Bennett saw another infected stumbling along in the forest beside them, totally oblivious to their presence. The haughty boyfriend raised his 9-millimeter pistol and squeezed off a haphazard shot. It ricocheted against a tree, but the sound echoed in the vale. The forest came alive with motion.

  Bennett rose, “MOVE!”

  The group sprinted down the track, hearing pounding footsteps on the blacktop behind them. Bennett cursed aloud; Elvis was frozen with fear near the truck. At the end of the bridge, Bennett saw Leeroy spin on his heel. His AR-15 thundered its retort four times, in calm, measured succession. Another arrow flew past Bennett’s head. Bennett turned to see half a dozen infected in a full, unbroken sprint. They moved with horrifying speed.

  “Start the truck!” The puffy boyfriend screeched from out in front, as his pistol snapped back again and again. Elvis stood motionless, watching the approaching foe. The girlfriend hopped in the cab and fired the ignition.

  Bennett tried to control his breathing and stop the barrel of his shotgun from moving. He squeezed the trigger and swore. The pellets scattered wide, and ripped an infected man’s arm off at the shoulder in an explosion of sticky fluid. Bennett pumped the fore-end and felt another shell slide into the port. His next shot took half the man’s face off, and he fell. An infected child scampered closer and closer, bounding as the boyfriend’s panicky pistol shots skipped off the black asphalt.