Part 4: Favors and Firefights
By: Jordan Martin
Fetid, cloudy breath leaked from the corners of this overall-clad farmer as he descended toward me. My legs pushed for me to lunge out; to strike him in the face so hard his jaw would collapse into his face. I couldn’t.
Faith hasn’t been easy to come by in life for me, and in the last few weeks I’ve found myself awash without. Right now, I’d never felt more like praying.
A muffled pop and a loud whiz sang through the air as a bullet struck the farmer in the eye socket, propelling every last bit of gray matter from the back of his skull. The three behind him paid no mind, short of the throatless woman gurgling a few extra bubbles.
I didn’t feel faint. I didn’t feel woozy. I just felt more like giving in than fighting back.
The other two men dropped in the same fashion, save for one taking three hits to the chest before his head blew out. A few bullets zipped past the woman, but her petite frame and wobbling canter made her a near impossible target, even for Harry’s somehow steady hand. Ambling past the mutilated corpses of her crew, she fell upon me. Saliva cascaded with her shriek, across my chest and shoulders.
My right arm lit up with sudden strength and vigor, smashing my fist into the side of her head just moments before her teeth met my belly. She rolled off me from the force, but her teeth clicked loudly as she persisted trying to get a bite. Her eyes darted left to right, even rolling back into her skull. I had her pinned to the ground, every part of my body moving on borrowed energy. Residual instinct, maybe.
Her snapping mandible clenched tightly several times, always stopping short of my forearm. My weight kept her stuck in place. She wrenched against me hard enough that I felt her collar bone snap. Then again, pushing the broken bone through her skin. Thick clumps of coagulated blood spewed forth, bringing a new stink that I had not yet experienced.
“Keep ‘er down!” Harry shouted, undoing a section of the fence. Her ashen skin squished like partly dry clay; something like mashing an eggplant. Nothing about her registered that she was in pain, despite her injuries. “Almost there!” Harry shouted.
“Drop your weapon!” a man shouted. I glanced upward—four living men in full camo stood outside a jeep. Two weapons were trained on Harry, two on me. I hadn’t even heard them pull up.
Worse yet, they weren’t Chloe.
Living through the end days of humanity changes a man, as it seems. Just weeks ago I was chasing down store executives for reports. Eyewitnesses for interviews. Convicted murderers for their story. Now I was kneeling atop a grotesque interpretation of some disease, hosting something from my own genetic pool, and holding her still so I wouldn’t get shot or eaten.
It used to be terrible if I forgot my lunch at home. Now disappointment meant I would die by a gun rather than being eaten or infected like everyone else.
Like Chloe, maybe.
I winced at the thought and banished it from my mind. She was alive. She had to be. It just hadn’t been enough time for her to get here, was all.
“Put down your weapon or we will use deadly force!” another of the camo men shouted.
“Ok, ok, I’m puttin’er down! Help him!” Harry said loudly. He kept one open palm toward them as he knelt down, setting his rifle next to a fence post. He didn’t stand after that, but kept both his palms raised.
“Are you infected?” the first man barked.
“What?” I called back.
“Have you been bitten?” he shouted back. They stood silent, watching both Harry and me.
“No,” Harry said. A moment of tense silence settled on us all, broken only by another retch from the living corpse under me. She lunged upward, howling against me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Harry reach for his gun.
Bursts of light and sound erupted from in front of me and then by the fence, igniting a sudden pain in my shoulder and left arm. I collapsed, falling toward the ditch once more as bullets tore past me and over me. My ears rang against the noise, competing harshly against my beating heart.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” another of the men shouted, but it was too late. Harry held his shoulder as thick red ooze trickled down his sleeve. He dropped his gun once more. The two men watching him fell to the ground. One watching me took a knee; the other stood steady, but was now pointed at Harry.
My left shoulder throbbed from my falls, my right from whatever hit me. The dry air still carried a stench from Harry’s front yard, but it was now intermingled with rot and smoke. The woman who attacked me lay perforated before me, the contents of her head now saturating the gravel below her.
“Civilian! Discard your firearm out of your reach or I will be forced to kill you!” said the lone man standing.
“You assholes shot me!” Harry shouted back.
“Drop your weapon and move away from it now!”
“Not until you do!” Harry threatened.
That woman… Something about her was familiar. Her eyes were soft against her hollowing sockets, and what remained of her skin looked younger than when I first saw her. A blink of a memory flashed across my eyes. Her name was Margaret, and she lived a few miles north of here. I dated her for a few weeks in high school.
“You’re not gonna come on to my property and shoot at me!” Harry bellowed back. His voice wavered and he shook, but he kept his weapon raised. Silence ensued once more, this time interrupted by a human moan. One of the men initially watching Harry suddenly clenched his body into a ball, grunting against the pain.
“Rhodes, you ok?” the man said.
“Hard to breathe,” he gasped back, still clutching his sides.
“He ok?” Harry asked.
“No, I’m not fucking ok!” Rhodes screeched, “You shot me!”
“You shot first,” Harry called out.
“Put your weapon down! This is your final warning” the first man called.
“You’ll take it from my cold, dead hands!” Harry shouted. I started wondering how I’d survived so long. If it wasn’t infected killing people, it was people killing people.
“Everyone, shut up!” I screamed from the bottom of the ditch. “Everyone’s hurt. We can settle this later.”
“Bullshit,” Harry added. “No one comes out here on accident.”
“My name is Sargent Matt Williams. We’re lost,” the first man said.
“You’re lost, dick,” Rhodes said to Matt.
“What do you mean, lost?” I asked.
“We don’t know where we are. We were detoured on our way out of Colorado to meet with the interstate,” the first man said. “My men are injured. We need safe haven. If you can’t provide this, we will take it by force.”
My stomach turned over, and I felt pressure building at the back of my throat. Harry had been shot, something hit me, and only one man was still standing after six men and four infected met. We had no hope if this persisted.
“I’ll need a ride out of town,” I called. “You give me that, I promise we all walk away from this.”
“Jordan!” Harry called out. He sounded like my father.
“Harry, we’ve got no choice. You and I both need help,” I said, sitting up slowly. My shoulders ached, pulling tight on my neck. I turned back to Harry, his complexion fading into white pallor. The blood oozing from his shoulder had drenched his sleeve, and he couldn’t even keep his gun steadily pointed forward anymore. He reluctantly agreed, dropping his weapon entirely. He fell backward onto his backside, then rolled onto his back.
“Rhodes, can you move?” Matt demanded.
“Yeah, he only got me in the jacket.”
“Stop sniffin’ dirt and get Dunbar inside, then double back for Jamie,” Matt said. Rhodes stood, favoring one side, and reaching for Dunbar, who was still kneeling beside Matt.
“He gonna be ok?” Rhodes said, glancing to the gasping Jamie.
“He’s been hit—nothing critical. Civilian, can you move?” Matt redirected.
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“My name is Jordan. Jordan Martin.”
“Mr. Martin, I need your assistance with your companion. We need to move inside. Do you have the area secure?” Matt asked.
“The front yard is a shit swamp, and there’s a fence everywhere else,” I called back.
“I’ll take it. Move the fence—reestablish in five after I move the vehicle. Go go go!” Matt shouted.
Rhodes lifted Dunbar to his feet, who only continued staring at the wound in his leg. He looked to be in shock. Harry was snoring, calm and motionless by the fence. I had to press on, help get things cleaned up. As grim as it was, it would only get worse than if Chloe found us all dead from shooting one another.
Especially next to my dead ex-girlfriend.
“The other one, on the ground—does he need a hand?” I called out.
I stumbled and struggled, making my way to Harry. He threw an arm over my shoulder, still breathing and muttering something about making sure the meat doesn’t burn. He’d just cut up a few sides of beef—I let it slide, hoping that meant we had more ready to eat.
All of us stumbled into the house, dropping onto the floor. After Dunbar was situated on the couch, Rhodes ran back outside to help Matt. Harry was disoriented when he spoke, but seemed to know his way around. I didn’t know if he’d finally slipped into senility or if it was blood loss. Neither helped.
“Make sure you bring some food to Martha,” Harry muttered.
“Who is Martha?” Dunbar asked.
“My wife,” Harry spouted.
“His late wife,” I added.
“Woah, late wife?” Dunbar muttered, grasping his thigh to shift his weight. “Is she taken care of?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Harry said.
“Harry, take it easy,” I eased him. “You’re at home.” Harry muttered a few more things, most of which were indiscernible. I had to change my interest to Dunbar.
“What is it you’re doing out here?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, man. I’m just following orders.”
“Your boss said you were lost. Is that true?”
“I’m telling you, guy, I have no idea. I’m just here to help drive,” Dunbar responded. “At least, I was,” he mumbled, looking at his bleeding leg.
“We’re here on orders from the Pentagon,” Matt said, standing in the doorway.
“Pentagon? What Pentagon?” I started, “The world’s gone to shit. There’s no way the Pentagon is still issuing orders.”
“Presently, probably not. We haven’t had any communication from anyone, because we’ve been stuck on these back roads,” Matt said. “We are the last of our squad, and we are stuck on roads we don’t have coverage.”
“Meat’s burnin’” Harry said.
“Are you hurt?” Matt asked. I pointed to the graze on my shoulder, and then to Harry’s wound. They set to work, strapping layers of gauze and compression wraps around Jamie’s torso. Dunbar had been hit on the thigh, but wasn’t life threatening. They moved around one another, bandaging and patching where they could. Everyone bit their lip, grimacing during their turn.
“I can’t handle this shit. My brother’s fucked up because of this guy!” Dunbar said, pointing at Harry, then turned back to Jamie. I hadn’t noticed before, but the two were startlingly similar. It didn’t feel like the time to ask if they were twins.
“Our mission has nothing to do with avenging collateral damage,” Matt said.
“Collateral damage? You can fuck yourself!” Dunbar said, trying to stand. He sank back into the couch, keeping him from leaving on a dramatic note. A rage burned behind his eyes, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t do anything with it. Matt folded his arms.
“We stay here one night, and head out in the morning for the interstate. Rhodes: you’re responsible for the old man. Other guy: you’re with me,” Matt said.
“Jordan,” I snapped. “What are we doing?”
“Unloading.”
“What the hell is all this?” I asked, grunting and lugging a huge crate.
“Mostly ammo—we don’t have much for actual guns on us,” Matt said. I was actually pretty shocked—military guys weren’t usually so candid.
“Why’s that?”
“That I’d rather not talk about,” Matt said. That sounded more like it. The back of the jeep had three massive totes that required the both of us to move them, followed by a dozen or so of these fifty pound crates. All of them had metal on metal rattling inside them.
“Isn’t this a lot of firepower for four men?” Rephrasing the question probably wouldn’t help, but I thought I’d give it a shot.
“If I told you I really didn’t know, and swore on it, would you leave me alone?” Matt asked, stopping in his tracks.
“No. I wouldn’t buy it,” I answered. Matt sighed and tossed his head back. He put his crate on the ground with a dull thud and a rattle from inside, then sat on it facing me.
“Pull up a chair,” he said. I followed suit with my crate. “I’m fairly sure I don’t have to get you up to speed on this virus, right?”
“Cannibalistic psychos. Highly infectious,” I interjected.
“Sure. Well, a state of emergency was declared not long after reports started surfacing of the infection in countries other than our own. Countermeasures were implemented, but none of them succeeded,” Matt said.
“Right, but why are you here?”
“The group with my commanding officer came through here last week. They last reported their location somewhere near here, and haven’t reported for a week,” Matt said gravely. “My mission is to locate them, as they were transporting a group of uninfected survivors, one of which was a member of the US Senate.”
“Seriously? I have a little trouble swallowing that the government is still active right now,” I said.
“And yet here I am. Funny how that works sometimes,” Matt said, standing. He sighed against the weight of the crate, and continued on his path.
“How do you know they were out here?” I said, lifting my crate.
“Geotagging,” Matt spouted. “The triangulation never finished, so the coordinates were only approximate. They could be anywhere within ten miles of here.” The bulk of the crate strained against my injured shoulders.
“Still seems like a lot of hubbub over one senator,” I said. “Does this particular guy know something special about this outbreak?”
“No, and that’s the most frustrating part,” Matt admitted. “We’re only out here because of his big brother.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. It couldn’t be.
“Who is it exactly that you’re looking for?” I asked, desperately trying to mask the anticipation in my voice. If it was him…
“The man’s little brother. Jake Murdock.”