A/N Hey guys, sorry for the late update, also sorry for the story vanishing, then reapearing but with the chapters in the wrong order, not my fault I swear!!! Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter and please comment/vote :)
Twenty Four
“I really wish we could have cleared the town.” I muttered as the number of infected in our way increased.
“Me too. But we were doing well keeping them away without having to mount a major offensive…” Kitty reasoned.
“Yeah I suppose.” I conceded, swerving to avoid a large group of Infected. “How are the others doing?” I asked.
“Fine, good speed, they’re keeping up.” Sandy said, not turning around from the back window.
“That’s good. That on the other hand is not.” I swore under my breath. Our way was blocked by a fallen telegraph pole.
“Maybe if we line up all three cars and push on the right hand side?” Kitty suggested.
“Yeah that might work, fuck I hop it works.” I added as one of the Infected let out a massive screech, calling all its friends for dinner.
“I’ll take some out from the sun roof.” Sandy said, unbolting the heavy metal grid that we’d reinforced the sunroof with.
“I’ll take the back window.” Kitty said, putting the shotgun up to her eye to aim.
I gestured to Zak and Chris who were both driving, trying to tell them Kitty’s plan with hand signals. A minute or so later both men nodded at me and slowly approached the fallen pole. Once we were all in position I nodded and slowly at first, we pushed on the fallen pole. We increased power until all three vehicles were smoking at the tyres, I was about to wave them off when finally it gave, the wire tangled around it that were holing it in place gave way and we lurched forward, me and Zak both stalling. I waved Chris forward, we were now surrounded by Infected and though Sandy, Kitty, Lily and Brian were all doing a good job shooting, we were close to being over whelmed.
“Sandy, get back in and bolt up.” I ordered, starting the pick up again. She climbed back in, quickly bolting up the sunroof. She soon began shooting from the back window with Kitty, stopping any Infected from climbing into the back of the pick up.
From far off to the left we heard a high-pitched scream, definitely not human and suddenly all the Infected just stopped.
“Alex get us out of here.” Kitty whispered.
We were all thinking the same thing. A Special. It had to be.
“What is that?” Jacob asked as we sped off down the road.
“Don’t know for sure, probably a Special, a Mutated, they’re the Infected but… More. They’re not as dumb, they’re bigger, stronger, faster and just a bigger pain in the ass. They’re really dangerous.”
“You mean a Second Stage?” He asked.
“What’s a second stage?” I asked back.
“ Well the virus, it changes people right? A Second Stage, or what you call a Special, is an Infected that’s fused better with the virus than the others, they go through a second change, more unpredictable and volatile than the first change.”
“What makes them fuse with the virus so well?”
“Beats me. Echo had only managed to get their hands on a handful of them when Peter contacted me, that’s my dad’s old friend.”
“You know what this means.” I said to Kitty as the thought came to me. “Washington is definitely out of the picture, Echo will be swarming all over it.”
“You were thinking of going to Washington?” Asked Jacob.
“Yeah, we found a file and in it we figured out Washington was where Echo had their main US office.”
“Tell me, do you have a death wish?” Jacob asked incredulously.
“No, we thought that Echo might have been wiped out, we wanted to see if they’d left anything useful behind.” I tried to defend our thinking.
“The whole of Washington is now their HQ. A massive wall, 100ft high keeps out the Infected. They cleared the whole city and demolished huge sections of it, it’s the biggest ‘safe zone’ in America. I’ve not seen it personally, but I’ve heard stories.”
“Maybe we should avoid Washington for a bit.” Sandy suggested, her eyes still scanning for signs of the Second Stage we knew was out there in the town, somewhere.
“I think you’re right. For now we’re just going to focus on getting the hell out of this town.” We’d left the bulk of Infected behind but up ahead there were more that had been attracted from the other direction. They were stood still and silent just like the others.
“What if it’s not a second stage?” Asked Kitty.
“What?” I asked.
“That sound, what if it’s not a second stage, what if it’s Echo.”
“No, if anything Echo would try to make them more active, they really love to use the Infected as their weapons, if they can save getting their hands dirty, they will.” Jacob said. As much as I wanted to scan the surrounding area I had to keep my focus on the road, it was full of debris and there was lots of potential for a flat tire and that would not be good.
“Fuck! It’s behind us!” Yelled Kitty, immediately beginning to fire. “It’s going after Zak!”
I looked at it in my rear view mirror. It was horrific. Big, muscular with huge shoulders. It’s mouth was by far the most terrifying thing about it. A circular gaping maw lined with hundred of tiny, sharp teeth. Huge bat-like ears made up for the fact the thing had blank, unseeing eyes.
“Confuse it with sounds!” I shouted, slamming on the brakes whilst turning, making the truck emit a screeching sound that made even me cringe. The noise seemed to physically hurt the second stage and it stopped going for Zak, instead it came for us.
I put my foot down and followed after Zak who had caught onto my plan just like I knew he would and was a good twenty feet in front of me, repeating my move with the brakes.
“Aim for those ears Sandy, lets take it down!” Kitty yelled, reloading her shot gun.
“Got it!” She replied gleefully. There was nothing Sandy liked better than a good bit of zombie slaying.
She aimed, took a deep breath then pulled the trigger. Her shot hit it’s mark, lodging deep inside the things ear. It screeched and doubled over in pain.
“Don’t stop shooting! I want to see brain!” I shouted, the thing might be debilitated but it wasn’t dead.
Sandy, Kitty, Brian and Lilly all fired on the thing until its head was just a puddle of red pulp on the tarmac.
“We did it!” Cried Sandy happily.
“We sure did.” I groaned, the second stage dying had broken the spell over the infected and they were once again hungry for our flesh.
“Fuck sake.” Groaned Kitty, reloading once again.
I put my foot down and followed after Zak. Sandy got back out of the sun roof and helped to clear a path for me while Kitty stayed at the back window picking off any stragglers. I felt proud at the fact I didn’t have to tell them what to do, they just did it automatically, they both had decent heads on their shoulders and knew what I was thinking without me even saying it.
“A few more blocks and we’ll be through the worst.” I reassured.
I was right and ten minutes later we’d cleared the town centre. Five miles out of town we slowed enough to check everyone was ok but we didn’t stop, we needed to keep this head start on Echo.
-x-x-x-x-x-
“What happens if Echo catch up with us?” Sandy asked two days down the road.
“Then we fight them and we survive, just like always” I replied simply.
“But they’re human.”
“I know, but they still want to hurt us. It’s hard, but if we want to survive we sometimes have to do things that we don’t want to.” Trying to explain survival of the fittest to a six year old seemed brutal but then I guess that the world is pretty brutal, especially now.
“I think I understand, and I do want to survive so I guess I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Sandy, you are the bravest person I know.” I said truthfully.
“Thanks Alex, I’m trying real hard but I don’t like the idea of killing properly living people who can talk and don’t want to eat me.”
“I don’t like it either, and I bet Kitty and Jacob don’t really like the thought of it much themselves. It’s just one of those things, we grit our teeth and we do what needs to be done.”
“Sandy.” Jacob said. “Echo, they’re not like us. I kill so that I can live. I get the feeling that’s why you guys do it too. Echo Kill people because they want to dominate, do you know what that means?” Sandy shook her little blonde head. “It means they want to be in complete control of everyone on Earth. They’ll make you do things you don’t want to do, they’ll tell you what you can and cant do and when. They’ll hurt you Sandy, to ensure that you do exactly what they want. They want you to be so scared of them that you would never even consider going against them. Your life won’t be your own. What they want to take from you is more precious than what the Infected want to take. Zombies only want your life, Echo want your freedom.”
The truck dropped silent and I looked anxiously at Sandy. She looked confused and she tried to wrap her young mind around those very adult words.
“I think I understand. I guess that if you die, well then you’re dead, you don’t have anything to worry about anymore, but if someones got your freedom, you could be really sad and well… That could last for ages and ages!” Sandy exclaimed, she’d had a revelation that she thought was a new concept.
But as soon as we’d heard of Echo, this had become a possibility to us, an almost certainty when we discovered Echo had survived the apocalypse.
“That’s right, but there’s this awesome thing about freedom, yeah someone can take it from you, but you can take it right back from them.” Jacob smiled. “So there’s always hope.”
“And I wouldn’t stop fighting would I Alex!” Asked Sandy, wanting to impress this wise newcomer.
“You sure wouldn’t.” I answered smiling, because I knew it was the truth. Sandy was a fighter, if anything happened to me and the others Sandy would always find a way to carry on.
The thought of Sandy being out there on her own almost brought on a panic attack and in that moment I promised myself that I’d prepare her for the possibility of us being separated, or worse.
It was slow going, the roads were cluttered and we had to keep stopping to despatch small groups of the Infected and this carried on for two days, we were nearing a large town, a small city really that we planned to skirt around, it was maybe 100 miles from the coast. The truck was silent, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
“Alex, stop the truck.” Kitty said, her face set in concentration. “Can you hear a helicopter?”