**Alright, here's chapter 3. Sorry it took so long, I've been very busy with work, and with my other, much larger piece. But, I suspect that no one reading this is reading only this, so I'm sure you've kept yourselves entertained otherwise, and are not waiting with baited breath upon my every word. If you are, perhaps you should get out more.
A single, vindictive curse echoed across the plains. Aubrey let the word hang in the air for a few moments before he regained control of himself. He placed one knee on the ground and clenched his fists, breathing calmly until the pain subsided. When it did, he reached over, picked up the metal plate that had slipped free of its clamp onto his leg, and placed it back where he wanted it.
Rafe sidled up cautiously, his head bowed, and gave a concerned whine. "No, I'm fine bud." Aubrey reassured him, rubbing his head affectionately. "Just didn't clamp it tight enough. I've got it now." He tightened the clamp again as Rafe trotted off to resume his guard duties. When he was certain that the plate was securely fastened to the workbench, Aubrey picked up the cutting torch from where it too hard dropped and resumed his work.
Ever since clearing the farmhouse and surrounding outbuilding eight days previous, Aubrey had been had at work turning the farm house into an extensive and well-defended safe house. It was what he'd been doing pretty well since the shit hit the fan. It wasn't strictly speaking his job, but he and those like him had been tasked with doing what no one else could: jumping willingly into the White zones, with the ultimate goal of helping as many uninfected people as possible reach safety. And in all that time, Aubrey had noticed one immutable fact: when people are on the run from hordes of zombies, a great big sign that says 'Safe House Ahead' will draw them like flies to honey. Metal doors and barred windows would do more to protect them than any amount of firepower.
Aubrey finished his cut and reached over to twist the knob, cutting the flow of gas from the tank to the torch and dousing the flame. He stood up so the metal could cool for a few minutes before he affixed it to the safe house door he was constructing. While he waited, he sat on the porch with his lunch and looked out at the field. Rafe stood alert about 50 yards from the front door, his ears twitching, on the alert for any sound or smell that might be associated with the infected. Over the last eight days, over a dozen infected had wandered into the farm house's area. Rafe had sniffed them all out, and Aubrey had dealt with them before they'd come within 100 yards.
The main safe house door was the last component he had to put on the house to seal it. The windows were already barred, and the back door, and one side door had already been treated with a similarly robust door. Every access point except those three was permanently sealed. The steel he'd acquired from salvage around the farm, and the nearby road. The torch was part of the equipment setup he'd been carting around in his truck since he'd raided a Home Depot in DC. Along with anything else he could possibly need to construct a safe house, and, from CIA headquarters in Langley, more ammunition than he could ever use.
He put the last bit of jerky in his mouth and washed it down with what remained of his warm beer. He stood up and put his gloves on in preparation to move the door, when he noticed Rafe perk up. He stopped, his hand drifting almost casually to the pistol on his hip.
"What's up bud?" he called. Rafe whined, then started to bark loudly, staring in the same direction. Aubrey followed his gaze. On the horizon, he saw the tallest buildings of a nearby town. But he couldn't see why Rafe was agitated. "Rafe, quiet!" The dog fell silent instantly and looked back at him, waiting for more instruction. Aubrey listened.
He heard…something. He walked forward, off the porch to lose the subtle creaking noises. He knelt to the ground and closed his eyes, dedicating his entire concentration to listening. He heard birds, insects, the wind in the trees.
Gunfire.
With the world so quiet, sound could travel a long way. Now that he knew what to listen for, it was easy to hear. Automatic weapons, more than one. It was a long way off, probably in that town, but it was distinct. He tried, but he couldn't make out what kind of weapons they were using. But he could tell it was frantic, rather than controlled. Whoever was shooting was having a hell of a time.
"No." Aubrey said to Rafe's questioning gaze. The dog looked at him with his head tilted to the side, panting and wagging his tail, a sure sign he wanted to go check it out. "We're not getting involved in that. Too many unknowns." Rafe understood his tone at least, and gave a small whine. "You know procedure Rafe. We'll finish up here and check it out in a couple of days. Now come on, let's get back to work."
Some people might call it harsh, but Aubrey knew that it was the right decision. That town-he walked over to his truck and pulled out a map of the area. Rayford, Georgia-was far enough away that it would be either a four hour drive, given the blocked roads, or he could really push it and go off-road (his truck could more than handle it), but the noise would draw Zeke, and possibly negate any help he could offer to the shooters. Either way, by the time he got there, the fight would almost certainly be over. Either he could reconnect with the survivors, which he could do just as effectively a few days from now, or he'd be looking at a big mess on the street, which he could also do just as effectively days from now. But if he went in guns blazing today, then he'd have to fight his way through. By waiting, he could infiltrate, and possibly avoid confrontation altogether. To him, it wasn't much of a choice.
Despite his admonition that they return to work, Aubrey hardly worked at all, instead listening to the battle going on in the distance. He couldn't hear the inevitable shouts of whoever was shooting, but even without them, he could draw a mental map of the battle. He could hear the ebb and flow of battle, the hordes, the massive mutated infected dubbed 'Titans' by official sources, but known by the general populace by the equally accurate moniker 'Tank'.
Is that…a car?
When it was over, Aubrey grabbed his sniper rifle off the truck and aimed it at the road. For nearly five minutes he watched, but nothing passed by. Either they were taking a different road, and maybe even a different direction entirely, or he'd misheard. Either way, it would be a while before he felt secure enough to move towards the city. With the show over, he got back to work.
Two days after he first heard the weapons fire, Aubrey was finishing packing up his truck. It was his own; not knowing how long he'd be in the field, he'd taken the time to go to his apartment in Washington DC and pick it up. It was a Hennessey Ford F-150 SVT Velociraptor pick-up; in his opinion, the most incredible machine ever developed by the hand of man. He'd bought and upgraded it the year before, then thrown in a roll cage, a delta-shaped dozer blade, and tires whose pressure he could control from inside the truck, and could run flat. The original paint color was white, with the mud detailing black, but most of that had been overridden by the brown of mud, and the red and black of dried zombie blood. He was a bit of a splatter junkie.
He packed his weapons into the back of the crew cab, where he kept his personal effects. Before leaving, he double checked that only one of the safe house doors was unlocked, and the other was securely sealed, with clear signage all around leading people to the open door. He also had a dozen signposts in his truck, with cans of spray paint that he'd place at intervals leading from the safe house to the road, and a little bit beyond, to catch as much attention as possible.
Aubrey let Rafe climb into the passenger seat, then got in himself. At this point, he swapped his camouflage baseball cap for a brown cowboy hat, and started the truck. The powerful 600 horsepower V8 gave a throaty roar, accentuated by the open muffler, and Aubrey grinned like a happy child. He tapped the center console, and a Lynyrd Skynyrd riff started playing from the speakers. With a last look at the completed safe house, Aubrey hit the gas and peeled away from the building and aimed towards the highway leading to the city.
He was on the highway for only an hour, driving with relative caution on the shoulder, around the stalled traffic, when his GPS showed him that he was getting close to what he called the ghost zone. Past this line, he reverted to his training and went complete stealth. He parked his truck, put suppressors on all his weapons, and proceeded as though he were behind enemy lines. He hadn't even brought his truck to the farm house until two days after his initial attack; he'd scouted the entire area to ensure there were no nests or lingering Special infected. This would be the same, except he'd be scouting an entire small city. A big job, though it could be significantly eased by finding a high vantage point.
Off to the side of the road, he spotted a break in the trees where he could park. It looked like a farm access road that had fallen into disuse long before the Great Panic. He pulled in, stuck it in park, and shut the engine off. Outside, he pulled a large camouflage tarp out of the box in the back and stretch it over the entire truck. He left the rear cab door exposed though. He opened the door to grab his scout kit, and select his loadout for the trip.
He kept his M110, and made sure his suppressor was still in working order. Examining the bore, he figured he had a few hundred more shots with it. All good. He threw in two 20 round magazines of the sabot rounds, and four extra regular magazines, with one in the gun. For close range work, a Noveske Diplomat compact assault rifle. Again, a suppressor, along with an Aimpoint red dot sight, angled foregrip, and a full laser/light package. He had a bare Glock 22 and Sig P228 for his sidearms.
His pack was small. He always spent the first day just looking around. He'd return to the truck in the evening, sleep there, then bring a big pack into the field to set up a base camp somewhere on the edge of town. He had a few days of food, some ropes and gear for getting around, and a set of NVG's if he was caught out at night.
Before leaving, Aubrey brought a jerry can up to the road and filled it with siphoned gas from the cars. He topped off the tank in his truck, and put the rest in the back with a dozen others in various states of fill. Finally, he pulled Rafe's combat vest out of the back, and Rafe patiently waited while he put it on. In addition to providing protection against bullets and, more to the point, bites, it had a forward facing camera, a radio to allow them to keep in communication, a med kit, and a few extra magazines for Aubrey's weapons.
The two companions started down the road, moving at a light jog through the soft roadside grass. They were completely silent; two hunters, their experience together so extensive, they worked as a single unit, completely unstoppable.
On average, there were half a dozen infected every 50 feet of road. Those were the free ones. Of those, there would be one or two every few hundred yards that was looking in the right direction long enough to notice the two living beings. Most would lose interest the moment they ran past a few seconds of chase time. Those more persistent ones were dispatched with Aubrey's katana, rather than a firearm.
The other zombies, far more populous, were those still in their cars. What appeared to be hundreds of people were still belted into their seats. Some had been bitten before getting in, and had simply turned. Unfortunately, most appeared to have been perfectly healthy, but trapped. Traffic was so packed on the road, no one could open their doors to run. Windows had been smashed, arms and heads had reached in, and that was that. The chaos and terror was something Aubrey remembered well, and would have preferred to forget.
Two miles down, the road, which was forced to follow the natural sways and flows of the land, took a large curve to the right, away from the city, and continued on into the distance. Presumably, it would later curve back to enter the town, but Aubrey took it as a good point to leave the road altogether. He knelt by the road, keeping an eye out for Zeke, and checked his position on his map, which he kept in a transparent sleeve on the outside of his left forearm. He checked his compass reading, and for good measure, he tore the door off a rusted old station wagon and placed it conspicuously upside down next to a Civic, marking his exit point from the road and acting as a way marker for his return.
Aubrey and Rafe entered the woods and their pace slowed significantly. Every 50 yards, Aubrey would silently signal to Rafe to stop, and they'd take a knee and simply listen to the forest. There were probably dozens of zombies who'd wandered off the road and into the woods, and the easiest way to keep track of them-and any threat, really-was to know what nature was supposed to sound like, and know when it sounded different.
Fortunately, the trees were comfortably spread out, and the brush wasn't too thick in enough places that an easy path could be carved. Coupled with the layer of morning dew that had yet to dissipate, since it was only late morning, and their passage was effectively silent.
Rafe ran up a fallen tree propped on another stump and stopped, looking around, his ears flicking in every direction. Aubrey climbed carefully over a soft pile of moss to avoid sinking in and watched the dog. After a few moments, he paused and tilted his head, as though he'd found something interesting. It appeared whatever it was wasn't a threat though, as he jumped down off the tree and proceeded. He kept a good distance ahead of Aubrey, having much better nose and ears.
After only a few more seconds, Rafe stopped again. He issued a low growl and his ears flicked to the left, followed closely by the rest of his head. "What've we got?" Aubrey asked quietly. Then he saw it.
A tall, gangly zombie surrounded by a cloud of noxious smoke was a dozen yards away, loping quickly to Aubrey's ten o'clock. It hadn't even noticed the two of them, intent as it was on its target. Aubrey had never seen one of them move so fast before. He started following; whatever it was interested in, he was too.
A trio of gunshots rang out. Aubrey dropped and raised his assault rifle to firing position in one swift movement. He almost called out, "Contact!" before he stopped himself. He'd managed to forget that his team was gone. But those gunshots would have attracted any Zeke in the woods. He was well camouflaged, but whoever was shooting had just rung the dinner bell.
Zoey took a deep breath to curb her apprehension, and stepped around the thick truck of the tree to examine her handiwork. Her heart soared as she saw exactly what she'd hoped. A rabbit was hanging a few feet off the ground, trapped by the snare she'd set the night before.
God, finally, something goes right!
Since they'd barricaded themselves on the bridge in Rayford, Louis and Francis had been relying on her-and her father's lessons-to provide food. It had been a long time since she'd been hunting with the old man, however, and the results were less than stellar. Though Louis was too polite to say, Francis had no trouble pointing out how tired they were of salvaged canned food and squirrel. Rabbit would go a long way toward shutting him up.
He'd been unusually pissy since…since Bill died. Without the aged vet to keep him in check, his sarcasm and biting complaints were louder and more frequent than ever. She understood objectively that everyone grieved differently, but he could have had a little more consideration towards her own grieving. Things hadn't exactly been easy since losing him. Taking hours to fall asleep, trying to keep tears from manifesting and destroying what credibility she had with the males-she needed that credibility! If she was going to get the three of them to the Keys, they had to respect-
Was that really what she was? Had she taken over Bill's mantle of leadership? Zoey actually stopped packing the rabbit away in her makeshift game bag to consider that thought. Sure, she'd been working hard to keep herself busy, to keep darker thoughts away as much as possible, and maybe that had translated to taking a little more initiative than she would have with Bill around, but surely the two men, both of whom were at least 10 years older than her, with far more experience in just about everything, had better things to do than look to her for command. Right?
The three of them had settled into their respective roles since the incident, which turned out to be an extension of their tasks under Bill; since he had slipped into his role as undisputed leader many weeks before, he'd kept them tight like the units he used to command in Vietnam. Francis was a decent medic, and he could keep their vehicles running, when they were fortunate enough to have one. Louis was sort of a jack-of-all-trades, proficient at just about everything he needed to do. Zoey surprised even Bill with her ability to acquire food, as well as her marksmanship. And Bill was in charge, despite Francis' incessant bitching. With Bill's death, those roles had remained the same, but all of a sudden, Francs and Louis were asking for her opinion, deferring to her thoughts. Was it because Bill had taken a bit of a shine to her, they thought of her as his successor.
That's a scary thought, Zoey mused, laughing a little as she finished with the rabbit and got to her feet to continue on to the next trap. This was the first time she'd considered it consciously, but she knew in an instant it was true. She had become responsible for them, despite there never having been any question put forward as to who should take over. But if she accepted that mantle, then she had a decision to make. She'd already started making decisions for the group two days before when she'd refused Ellis' offer to join his group of survivors. It had been a tempting offer at the time, and truth be told, Zoey had wondered frequently since then if she'd made the right choice, but it had been too soon after Bill's death, and trusting new people had seemed like a foreign concept to her after the rending of their tight-knit group. But Francis and Louis had accepted her word without comment, so maybe they really did see her as their leader.
Francis had reset Louis' knee as best he could, and swelling seemed to be going down, as far as they could tell. Zoey didn't want to say it, but she suspected Louis would never walk the same again. Francis had confided in her the night before, and expressed the same concern. He simply wasn't experienced enough. Nevertheless, Louis was upbeat, and eager, it seemed, to continue their journey to the Florida Keys just as soon as he was able. Zoey hadn't questioned the wisdom of Bill's plan before, but now it had to be her plan, and that put a lot more pressure on the matter.
Zoey pushed those thoughts from her mind as she heard a rustling in the leaves, and her gaze shot in that direction. A lone zombie was lurching its way towards her through the woods. This surprised her more than frightened her. She was well away from any urban area, having left the town of Rayford behind almost two hours before and entering the dense woods to the north. True, she'd spent more time than really necessary out here, the greenery offering a peace so difficult to come by in the city, but she'd been quiet, and kept her 'zombie footprint' to a bare minimum.
Of course, she thought, she could sit there and wonder how the zombie had found her, or she could deal with the problem. She was fortunate; the zombie's left ankle was broken almost completely in half, which slowed it and made it noisier. With the ground so soft and visibility through the trees so limited, she might not have heard it otherwise until it was too late. She carried a machete for just this purpose. She ran up to the zombie, drew the machete from its sheathe on her belt and, just as it was reaching out to her, she cut its head off in one stroke.
Panting slightly from her rapid approach, Zoey nonetheless felt flushed, pleased that yet another one of the creatures was dead. Okay, fine. Maybe she was putting way more effort into everything she did to mask her grief at Bill's death, but damn if it didn't translate into some serious ass kicking when it came to zombies. Zoey wiped the blood off on the zombie's shirt and sheathed the machete again. The wind rushed through the trees with a low howl, making the leaves move.
Zoey froze halfway through standing up. Her heart was racing, and she felt a pounding in her temples that came with extreme stress. She looked around.
Oh God.
There had to be fifty of them, if not more. They were all over the place, moving in all directions. It constantly amazed her the myriad appearances and outfits possessed by the undead. They looked like they just stepped out of their daily lives, and then spent a month in the wilderness. She supposed that that was in fact exactly what had happened. Couple that with the fact that the bodies within the clothes were slowly decomposing, their skin mottled and grey and brown, and it was a wonder any of them had anything more than rags on them. It was by miracle alone that only one had noticed her. No, that wasn't quite true. The howl of the wind was in fact the collective voices of five or six of them, all different shapes and sizes, all looking at her like a dinner menu. There was still a chance though. If she kept quiet and took out the ones who'd noticed her quickly enough, she could avoid waking the horde and maybe make it back to town without much of a fight.
She turned back towards town and walked as quickly as she dared, trying her best not to make a sound. The zombies who'd already noticed her followed dutifully, but she kept an eye on them. The closest only just reached her when the repeated her earlier actions and beheaded it with her machete. She didn't sheathe it though; it still had work to do.
It was going well until she heard a dreaded giggling sound. Jockey! She thought instantly. Her breath quickened to a panicky rate as she looked around for it. You could barely get one of those hunchbacked bastards off you with people helping you. She couldn't afford to let one get her when she was alone. She leapt over a large root and nearly slammed into the tree trunk, hiding behind it. She pulled her hunting rifle off her back and wrapped the sling around her arm so she could lift it with one hand, keeping her machete in the other. She lamented leaving his assault rifle on the bridge, but she'd been planning on hunting, not fighting.
The sound of the Jockey grew closer, but she still couldn't pin down where the source was. The noise was starting to alert the other zombies that something was happening. That noise made their other senses perk up. The closest ones were starting to pick up her scent. They sniffed, and their teeth started clicking together, a sound that was just insidious in how innocuous it should have been, yet it was absolutely terrifying. The sound that signified the zombies were hunting you. Then she saw it, literally bouncing on the ground between the trees and over the thick mossy ground to get to her. Somehow, it knew exactly where she was. Its tiny legs and spherical grey body seemed so…distorted, especially with its disproportionally buff arms. All that paled in frightening comparison when it got on you. Those arms would tear at your head, scratching, clawing, and removing flesh from bone as easily as a paring knife might. More than one zombie she'd seen had the telltale signs of a Jockey attack: exposed skull, flaps of scalp hanging off, face torn to pieces. It was an ugly way to go.
It was too fast, she knew she couldn't get it with her machete; she'd tried and failed before. Hating herself and preparing to run, Zoey lifted her rifle and aimed at the Jockey. There were dozens of zombies in the woods, she knew, but nevertheless, she squeezed the trigger three times, pausing just long enough to readjust her aim. On the third pull, the rifle had barely come back down from the recoil when Zoey shot forward off her back foot, breaking into a sprint almost instantly. Now the hunters knew, dinner was served.
The Jockey lurched back from the shots, but in her haste, Zoey's aim had been less than stellar. It lost most of the movement in its left arm, but its legs still worked, and nothing had hit its head. So after recovering from the hits, it began running at her with renewed vigor. Zoey didn't see this, busy as she was with a pair of zombies who'd come from behind a tree.
It leapt up, ricocheted off a tree, then jumped at her. It would have landed had she not dodged to the side at the last second, having caught it in her peripheral vision as she finished with the second zombie. The Jockey sailed on and landed a few meters in front of her, shocked and dazed that it wasn't on her head. Zoey didn't pause to consider her good fortune, she simply took off in another direction.
There was no guidance now, now plan. Zoey was simply running as fast and as far as she could. She stumbled over a zombie with no legs, crawling through the dirt to get to her. She cried out in pain as its outstretched arms clutched at her, and one hand scraped her ankle, leaving deep cuts. She smashed the butt of her rifle into its head as she collapsed to one knee.
Biting a whimper to the back of her throat, she used her rifle as a support to stand herself back on her feet. She took off forward again. Around her, every zombie was now after her; at least fifty, probably more. She made it less than 10 paces when she skidded to a stop. There were too many in front of her to go forward. Behind her was no better. She darted to the side, but stopped again as she saw even more. She was surrounded.
Forgetting escape entirely, Zoey levelled her rifle and fired at the nearest zombie. The powerful hunting rifle put it down with a single round to the chest. She swept left and fired again. An elderly man's head exploded. To the right. A child hit the ground, minus most of its neck. She'd long since learned to stop seeing them as human beings. Human was the last thing they were now. They were less than animals. They were more akin to insects than anything, running on instinct alone. They just looked like humans. She reloaded and fired again. And again. Every shot spelled death for one of the infected. But another one always came up to take its place. It seemed like it would never end.
Zoey loaded her last magazine into her hunting rifle. Make this one count, she heard in her father's voice. Or was it Bill's? She whirled around and sighted in on a sound she knew too well. The Jockey had come back. This time she aimed true. The rifle kicked back into her shoulder, and a single round flew directly into her target's head. Jockey down. Her grim, triumphant smirk turned into a grimace of pain before it could fully form though, as one of the infected threw itself onto her back and bit down on her shoulder. She gasped in pain and dropped her rifle. The zombie bit down harder, through her sweater and into the meat of her shoulder. Its weight started to drive her down.
Fighting through the pain, Zoey reached her left hand down to her waist and grasped her pistol. She lifted it to where she thought the zombies head was and fired. She didn't see the results either, but after three shots, the pressure on her shoulder disappeared, and the weight slid off her back and onto the dirt with a wet splat. Zoey touched her shoulder. Her hand came away sticky with necrotic saliva, but fortunately, not much blood. Lucky break, she supposed, that it hadn't gone too deep.
Not that it mattered; she was still surrounded. She pulled her second pistol from her hip and fired akimbo into the rapidly advancing horde. Now that she took a second look, maybe they were starting to thin. There somehow seemed to be less of them anyway. Maybe there was a chance.
Something heavy and powerful slammed into her, sending her flying. The ground came up hard, driving the air from her lungs. One pistol clattered away. Her palms stung as gravel and wood chewed at them. Zoey looked around wildly for whatever had hit her. A few meters away, a Hunter was crouched on the ground, looking over its shoulder at her. It growled, and Zoey shuddered involuntarily.
She moved forward and clambered to her feet. She raised her one remaining gun, steadying it with her other hand. But it leapt away. She cursed, but didn't dwell on it, simply shifting her sights to the next zombie in line. Once again, her father's training kicked in, and she placed tight groups into each target. They were still running at her, but the uneven ground slowed their progress, and she kept a safety ring around her.
The gun clicked empty, and she reloaded smoothly, and kept firing. But she was running low on ammunition, and there were at least thirty more that she could see. She put a bullet into the head of a fairly average-looking woman, then put down four more zombies besides. She checked over her shoulder, and saw the way was relatively clear. She still had her machete, and could conceivably fight her way out. Zoey turned to make a run for it, but stopped when she heard a growl behind her. She whirled around.
The Hunter was back. It crawled sideways on the ground, playing with her. Zoey took careful aim and fired. The Hunter jerked around. Not enough to stop the bullets from hitting it, but enough to prevent them from hitting anything vital. She kept firing, and was now getting frustrated that the damn thing wouldn't sit still. Then her pistol clicked empty. She calmly reached for another magazine and found…nothing.
The Hunter leapt, screaming. Zoey, her face carrying a look of helplessness, let her outstretched hand fall, and the empty pistol clattered off a log and into the dirt. She closed her eyes just before it struck.
Nothing. Or, more correctly, almost nothing. Zoey heard nothing more than a whiz and a splat. She opened her eyes, and they flew wider with shock. The Hunter was on the ground in front of her, dead. Fluid that was dark red and black was leaking into the dirt from a single, tiny hole in its head. Someone had shot it! Zoey looked around wildly for her savior, and her mouth fell open in shock once again.
Running towards her through the trees was a soldier. Camouflaged from head to toe, she could hardly see his face through his sunglasses, as well as some sort of covering. He looked like a big, brownish-green animal. Beside him, what looked like a wolf was running. It quickly outpaced him-and ran straight at her. Unable to form any other coherent thought, Zoey flinched, prepared to feel teeth digging into her.
"Get down!" the man shouted. Zoey got down.
**Finally, they meet. Sort of. Anyway, sorry if this seemed a little flat, there really wasn't much use for excessive dialogue from the two characters when both were alone. Now that they've met up, there will be much more talking. Thanks for reading, and please review.