Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Still on point, Sergeant Garza maneuvered alongside a large pickup truck. Unable to see over the hood of the oversized truck due to its excessive lift kit, he shifted to a standing position in order to peer through the truck’s window. Notable relief spread across his face when he saw no danger on the road ahead of them.

  BAAAMMMM! BAAAM! BBAAAMM!

  The ear-splitting noise erupted immediately next to Garza, shattering the silence like a rock tossed through a windowpane in the still of night. Acting solely on instinct, he leapt back defensively as he brought the barrel of his rifle up toward the truck’s window. As he did, his feet became entangled with one another causing him to tumble clumsily to the ground. The thing inside the truck repeatedly banged its bloodied and blistered hand against the closed driver’s side window, snarling through dry, cracked lips as it tried frantically to escape the confines of the truck. Just as Garza centered his rifle for the shot, the monster’s head snapped forward, slamming against the window with a dull thud. He saw the tip of a long blade protruding from the thing’s right eye as it fell slack.

  Through the thick, dark fluid oozing down the blood-smeared window, Garza glimpsed movement inside the truck’s cab. Only when Corporal Rocha popped up on the passenger side running board did Garza’s confusion dissipate. Exhaling in relief, Garza eased the pressure off of his trigger.

  Rocha placed a finger over his lips before signaling for Garza to look ahead.

  After watching a few more quick hand signals that she did not understand, Lin saw the hopeful look of acknowledgement and gratitude on Garza’s face morph into a ghostly pale expression of sheer terror. Although she did not understand all of the information they passed back and forth, the meaning behind the look in his eyes was unmistakable; she knew they were in trouble.

  Before Lin and General Montes could move up to find out what had them spooked, the two soldiers hurried back to their position. The worried determination etched across Corporal Rocha’s face told General Montes everything he needed to know, and further intensified the substantial concern growing deep inside Lin’s chest.

  Still crouching, Rocha spoke breathlessly as Garza kept his eyes trained on their surroundings. “Good news and bad news. The road is definitely impassable directly ahead, but there does appear to be a way through the traffic on the intersecting road below, off to the left a few hundred yards up. We’ll definitely have to test the off-road capabilities of the LSSV to get there. The bad news is we won’t likely be the only ones there if we can reach the spot.” The corporal’s eyes flitted toward the ground as he finished speaking, allowing time for the unspoken meaning of his words to reach the ears of his listeners.

  General Montes asked, “How many of them are down there? Can you tell? Did you see any survivors?”

  “It’s hard to say how many infected with so much of the area obscured by cars, but there are enough to make our day suck pretty bad. I didn’t see any survivors,” he replied, his eyes once again downcast. “The gap in the traffic seems a little odd. I mean, the rest of the interstate is bumper-to-bumper traffic for as far as the eye can see. It’s almost like the opening was placed there intentionally to funnel people through at that spot. I can’t imagine why someone would do that. Maybe someone else passed through before us—I don’t know. Either way, it seems suspicious.”

  Garza turned his head to address the group in a hushed voice. “I don’t see any of those bastards up here yet, but I think we’re about to have company. Can you hear that? The shithead banging on the truck window probably attracted them. We need to think about making our move now before it is no longer an option. And we need to get to that opening before more of the infected down below crowd in. I don’t know why that opening is there either, and I’m not sure if it is intended to be some sort of trap, but I think it’s our only choice at this point.”

  In total agreement, the four survivors moved quickly and quietly back to the truck. Garza drove once again, though he intended to turn the wheel over to General Montes once they were on flat ground below. Having grown up in rural Georgia surrounded by rednecks who thought mudding should be an Olympic sport, he argued that he was likely the best off-road driver among them, but when things got thick they would be better off with two shooters.

  Over his shoulder, Garza called out, “Everybody buckle up!” Lin swore he cast her a crooked smirk and a sidelong glance in the rearview mirror as he threw the truck into gear. As the rugged vehicle jostled over the relatively flat ground along the road’s shoulder, she saw what she could only describe as a grass waterfall disappearing over the edge of a cliff they were rapidly approaching. Being on top of the waterfall, she could not see its overall height and grade. Momentarily at a loss for words, she finally sputtered, “What the hell are you doing? You can’t drive over that cliff!”

  “It’s not a cliff. It’s a really big hill. Hold on!” Garza replied, as he pressed the truck’s accelerator.

  All she could see from her vantage was the blue sky dotted with wispy, white clouds, as if the earth below quite literally vanished into thin air. Lin felt her stomach lurch up from her abdomen, through her chest, and into the back of her throat as the big truck hung in the air for a brief moment before its front end dipped forward. The view through the windshield shifted from blue sky to green grass and riprap as the steep embankment came rushing toward them at an alarming pace. Before any of the occupants had time to breathe, the truck reached the bottom of the embankment. Its front bumper dug deeply into the soft soil, sending up an enormous spray of dirt like a rooster tail behind a speedboat as the shocks rebounded, and the truck popped out of the culvert.

  Jamming on the brakes, the truck reluctantly ground to a halt as the tires finally regained traction. “Holy shit! I think you damn near broke my spine!” Corporal Rocha exclaimed, rubbing the back of his neck.

  As his addled brain reoriented to the surroundings, Garza hopped out of the driver’s seat and traded places with General Montes. Pointing toward a break in the snarl of abandoned vehicles about two hundred yards ahead, Garza said, “Head for that spot! It’ll be a tight fit but we should be able to squeeze through.”

  As if in acknowledgement, General Montes shifted the truck into drive and started in the direction Garza had indicated. Although it could still be driven, the truck had clearly sustained damage during the wild downhill run. It pulled to the left, and the suspension popped and groaned with every bump. Envisioning a broken axle, Garza poked his head out the side window. All the military vehicles with run-flats, and it looks like I might have chosen the one without them! With a growl, he said, “Looks like we’ve got a damned flat tire or a bent rim!”

  Nonplussed, Corporal Rocha turned to Garza, and asked, “Don’t your military vehicles have run-flats?” Without responding, he looked at Montes and said, “Just keep driving. We’ll change it when a good opportunity presents itself.”

  As they drove parallel to the interstate, Lin noticed several things she had not seen from atop the other road. There were makeshift campsites at several locations along the interstate. Having been stuck in traffic, perhaps for days, it appeared as though many people decided to set up camp right where they were rather than abandon their vehicles in favor of a better location. Trash, the charred remains of campfires, an open laptop, and even an acoustic guitar—all manner of detritus of a civilization she was not sure still existed—lay abandoned along the interstate. She tried to ignore what her mind told her was a dried, bloody handprint on the discarded guitar; the deep burgundy glaring in stark contrast against the light yellow hue of its spruce top. Farther down, she saw something that made her stomach coil into knots as her heart faltered briefly. A small two-person tent rocked and writhed intermittently, as though a feral animal were trapped inside. She knew all too well that there was no wild animal enclosed in the tent. Polyester stuffing, torn from a shredded sleeping bag, swirled about in the light breeze making the macabre scene look like a fiendish snow globe from Hell.

  In ad
dition to the lurid visuals, which painted a grim picture of the fate of the unsuspecting travelers, a pungent effluvium that told a similar story hung in the air. The expected smell of gas and automobile exhaust was joined by the noxious scent of rubber, plastic, and paint being consumed by the fires still smoldering at several wrecks scattered throughout the sea of cars. Worse still was the subtle hint of a foreboding odor that Lin had grown all too familiar with over the last twenty-four hours—that of the infection and the death that followed closely in its wake. Her morbid ruminations were interrupted when they bumped over the shoulder and began to thread the narrow gap that snaked through the gridlocked traffic.

  Horrorstruck, Lin stared at the cars lining the passageway and saw that several were home to one or more of the infected. Their skin hung loosely in some areas and was plastered to the bone in others, like toilet paper thrown onto trees—once wet, now dried out by the sun’s intense rays. The shredded fingertips of clawing hands left slimy trails, like so many slug tracks marring the glass.

  Maneuvering with only three good tires, the truck crossed the first two lanes of traffic without much issue. As they started to cross the last southbound lane, General Montes voiced his concern about their ability to fit through the tight space between a large black SUV and a small exotic sports car. With his eyes fixed on something beyond the cars, Corporal Rocha said, “General, if we don’t get through, I don’t think we will make it out of here alive.”

  Drawn to the noise and movement of the truck, the entire infected throng was converging on their position. They poured clumsily through the tightly packed cars, bouncing off of one another like Plinko chips on some demonic edition of the Price is Right hosted by Lucifer himself.

  General Montes did not have to look at his long-time friend to pick up on the tension in Rocha’s voice. “Hold on! I’ll get us through,” he said.

  Just as the General stomped on the accelerator, Garza saw the sports car they were about to demolish. Screaming as though the infected were riving the flesh from his bones, he bellowed, “Whoa! Wait a second! There has to be another way! That’s a…”

  If Garza continued speaking, his words were lost amidst the clamor of the comparatively enormous truck colliding with the front end of the inexplicably pristine silver Porsche 918 Spyder parked several inches too close to the SUV to allow the truck unobstructed passage. The sound of metal grating against metal as the four-wheel drive truck plowed through the delicately sloped lines of the Porsche’s hood was only slightly louder than the anguished shriek that escaped Garza’s mouth.

  Noticing both Corporal Rocha and Dr. San staring at him as if he might have been possessed by a demon or grown an extra head, his face flushed slightly. “What? That was a Porsche 918 Spyder! There are like six of them in the whole damn country! Holy shit, those infected bastards are gonna pay for that!” Garza said in a clearly defensive tone.

  Engine straining, the truck cleared the southbound lanes and burst onto the grassy median. Despite the damaged wheel, they managed to put some distance between themselves and the slowly advancing horde. By the time they reached the gap in the northbound lanes, the mass of infected was at least one hundred and fifty yards away. The ground sloped toward the center like a V, causing most of the infected to be funneled into a loose, single-file line that slowed their advance considerably.

  “Pull over to the level area there, and let’s get this tire changed. Corporal, you get the spare dismounted, and I’ll work on getting the wheel off. You two cover us. If we move fast, I think we can do it before they get too close. Sound like a plan?” Garza said.

  With nods of approval all around, Corporal Rocha added, “Just like the Nascar.”

  Amused, Garza replied, “The Nascar, huh? Where did you say you guys are from again?”

  As the truck pulled to a stop, they leapt out looking not unlike a pit crew from the aforementioned racing organization, aside from the assault rifles. They each set about their respective tasks with notable efficiency. Rocha had the spare tire off in a flash, and joined Lin and General Montes who were providing security for Garza as he worked feverishly to get the wheel off the truck. This task proved more difficult than anticipated, as several of the lug nuts had jammed when the wheel was bent during their downhill escapade.

  The horde was still over one hundred yards away and did not pose much of a threat at that distance, but Corporal Rocha did the math quickly. He knew they would be cutting it close, and in a game of life or death, close was never good. He scanned their area in front of them for any sign of threats and detected movement among the automobiles lying dormant on the northbound lanes. When he looked closer and saw nothing, he wondered if his fatigued, overstressed mind was playing tricks on him. Shifting his attention back to the truck, he again caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Failing to visualize anyone or anything lurking among the abandoned cars, it occurred to him that the movement might have been inside one of the vehicles, rather than around them as he had initially suspected.

  It was then that he noticed the large passenger van sporadically rocking from side to side, the words ‘Church of Jesus Christ With Signs Following’ stenciled on its side in faded red letters. The name of the small Alabama town where the church resided was no longer legible as the majority of the letters had long since fallen by the wayside. At first glance, Corporal Rocha could not see what caused the vehicle to sway as though it was being bombarded by a strong gale. Suddenly his face went ghostly pale when he saw the cause of the van’s movement; nearly all fifteen seats inside the passenger van were occupied.

  Writhing and flailing as though overcome by the spirit, the congregation of infected parishioners scratched and clawed, trying fervently to free themselves from the metal tomb. Rocha shuddered as their efforts intensified with the realization that prey was in the immediate vicinity. Like an unholy mosh pit, faces and limbs briefly appeared in the windows, only to be swept away and replaced by others as they jockeyed for position. Despite being about fifteen yards away from the van of death, Corporal Rocha heard a sound that nearly made his heart stop: the low click of a door unlatching. When the van’s side door burst open, he realized that one of the infected had either inadvertently pulled the handle, or they had learned to do simple tasks such as open doors. Please tell me that was an accident. God help us all if the infected have become smart enough to open doors! With his voice full of worry, Rocha called to Garza, “How’s that tire coming? We really need to think about getting out of here!”

  Garza replied in a cool, even tone that Corporal Rocha thought sounded more fitting for changing a tire on a lazy Sunday drive than in the middle of a plague-ridden apocalyptic wasteland. “Give me three minutes. I’ve almost got it.”

  Seeing the tactical advantage of the bottleneck provided by the narrow opening in the van, Rocha called for General Montes to cover him, and for Lin to keep an eye on Garza as well as the advancing horde. He slung his rifle and drew his combat knife before charging headlong into the nightmare spilling out of the van like lava from an erupting volcano. I need to close that door before they all get out!

  Rocha reached the passenger van just as the first three infected poured through the open side door. He said a small prayer of thanks when he saw that the doorway was blocked by two of the infected trying desperately to get out of the van at the same time. An enormous woman wearing something akin to an oversized denim teepee was wedged against a woefully small elderly man, pinning him against the doorjamb. While she outweighed him by at least four to one, the addition of his frail frame in the door’s opening was just enough to prevent the behemoth from breaking into the clear. Neither one seemed remotely aware of the other. I can’t let her get out!

  Rushing to meet the first of the infected, Rocha flipped his knife into a reverse grip as he sidestepped the thing’s reaching arms. It went limp instantly when he backhanded his blade into the soft space just below the base of its skull, severing its spinal cord. A low sidekick to the knee of
the next infected thing folded the joint backward, and sent it toppling to the ground. Twirling the knife around into a hammer grip, Corporal Rocha ducked under the third thing’s outstretched arms. With a stout upward thrust, he plunged the blade under its chin, through its floor of mouth, and into its rotting brainstem. He felt its dead weight sag onto the hilt of his buried blade. Spinning in order to get closer to the van’s open door, he flung the creature off his knife and onto the second infected thing just as it was climbing awkwardly to its feet.

  Mustering everything he had, Rocha planted a solid front kick squarely in the blighted woman’s porcine belly. He felt the reverberations as ripples of fat raced away from the point of impact like shockwaves following a massive earthquake. Transfixed by the sight of the denim billowing away in great swells, it reminded him of school children making huge fabric waves by shaking an outstretched parachute. Almost in slow motion, the corpulent thing fell backward crushing whoever or whatever was behind her.

  With his restraint suddenly absent, the elderly thing lurched forward. Grabbing the door’s handle, Corporal Rocha slammed it closed, but not before an arm shot through the narrow opening. A sickening crunch erupted as the brittle bones of its forearm snapped like dry kindling. Gnarled and limp, the mangled extremity protruded through the opening, preventing the door’s latch from engaging. Rocha grabbed the hand as if to give it a firm handshake, then pulled hard as he brought his knife down in a swift downward arc, slicing through skin, muscle, and tendon with no more effort than if he had been slicing a loaf of bread. He rammed his shoulder into the door and was rewarded with a satisfying click.

  Breathlessly, he raised his boot and brought it down hard on the head of the last remaining churchgoer outside of the van. He started to raise his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow but froze when he realized he still held the old man’s severed arm in a firm grip. Shrieking like a little girl, Rocha tossed it away as though it were a poisonous snake.