It had been days of nothing but driving, only stopping for gas when they absolutely had to. They were low on food and water. Luckily the medical supplies remained unused. It was late at night and everybody was asleep, except for Dallas and Wolf, who were taking turns driving, when they saw they saw the arch. They made it to the half-way point at the Mississippi River.
"Guys, wake up." Wolf said, "We need your help."
They all got out and looked around for supplies and a way across the river. Bill and Hoxton found a ferry boat that could take the jeep across. Dallas, Wolf, Chains, and Francis found ammo and other supplies. Louis found more fuel for the truck. But Zoey seemed to be preoccupied by something.
"Guys, do you see that?" Zoey asked pointing to what seemed to be a group of what appeared to be people on top of the arch.
"Yeah." Dallas replied, "What are those guys doing up there?"
The figures on top of the arch where in dark clothes and seemed to be wearing night-vision goggles. But they were not moving like a human, they moved in that sort of half-conscious staggering motion the infected did. Then one of them fell off of the arch and hit the ground, then got right back up and stared at Zoey and Dallas.
It is what looked like a cloaker. Dallas had seen many of them in his heisting days. They were a stealth unit armed with gas grenades, a Compact-5 SMG, and a stun baton. But now it was clearly infected. One of the lenses on the night-vision goggles was cracked and its gloves were off exposing hands with bumps and bruises all over them and sharp claws. The mouth piece of its mask was torn off to reveal a mouth with blackened gums and blood stained teeth. It growled at them and crouched low to the ground, poised to strike.
Zoey and Dallas instantly started running, the infected cloaker screamed and chased after them in leaps and bounds. Zoey and Dallas ran back to the jeep where everybody else was waiting for them.
"Guys, we have a problem." Zoey managed to say, exhausted from the running.
"Yeah, turns out the cops were here and they left some of their special units to get infected." Dallas wheezed.
They all looked in the direction Dallas and Zoey came from to see eight infected cloakers leaping after them. Hoxton, Bill, Francis, and Wolf grabbed guns and immediately opened fire. By the time all four of them had to reload four of the eight infected cloakers were dead. The remaining ones came lunging at the group of survivors with great sweeping motions of their arms. It was a lot more graceful than most infected. But all the same they were killed, and the survivors got back to work.
They got the jeep onto the ferry and started the engine. But as soon as the engine started an alarm sounded.
"What the hell?" Bill shouted over the noise, "Why is an alarm sounding?"
"Think about it." Dallas said, "If you had a virus so dangerous that if one infected got out of quarantine it would mean thousands of deaths, wouldn't you want a warning system in case one was about to escape?"
"They probably rigged all of the boats to sound the alarm if the engine started." Chains said.
They looked down the road leading to the ferry dock to see hundreds if not thousands of infected rushing towards them. Chains got out his Brenner 21 and opened fire, each sweep of bullets mowing down the common infected. But still the special infected charged at them. Tanks began lobbing rocks, spitters spat glob after glob of acidic slime at them.
"Everybody bail out!" Dallas shouted as a rock struck the boat leaving a hole in it.
Without hesitation they jumped off the boat and into the water. The boat and the jeep with all of their supplies sank. They swam to the opposite shore and climbed up the bulkheads of the other side, sputtering filthy river water.
"Roll call." Hoxton said, "Anybody who isn't dead say I"
"I" They all replied.
They looked at the shore they just left, and all of the infected standing there. Some of the common infected jumped into the river to go after them and instantly found themselves drowning. The survivors looked at the road that went forward out of the city and towards their destination.
"Hoxton." Dallas said, "Did you manage to save the map?"
"Yes." Hoxton replied.
"Well then, at least we have that." Bill said.
They all walked forward, without food, water, or weapons. They just had a map and just themselves with everything against them and little to no hope for survival. They decided to stop in an alley way and rest. All over the walls were messages from survivors that were probably long since dead, saying the infected can't swim and they were finally safe. But they knew, they wouldn't be safe until they reached Doomsday Mountain, and not a second sooner.