Indestructible: V Plague Book 7 Read online

  3

  The female finally moved back outside the Osprey, but not before she had prowled around most of the interior. There was apparently a lot of wreckage strewn about as she took to jumping from spot to spot in her inspection. Before her departure, she leapt onto the metal over me a final time, slipping and sending another collection of debris crashing to the deck.

  I cringed at the noise, afraid it would attract other infected, but also excited when I felt another small shift. Once she departed I waited half an hour, calmly counting off the time in my head before I dared to move. I had no idea if she had just stepped out into the night and was standing there waiting to see what happened, or if she had headed out in search of a meal.

  When I felt it was safe to move, I reached up and grasped the metal rod that had hit me in the face. It was curved with hard edges and I realized it was a rib, or strut, or whatever the proper aviation term is for the internal structure that supports the smooth skin of an aircraft. Pulling, I worked it under the metal plate and down alongside my body.

  The curve was sharp and I had to rotate the strut to get it to fit, stopping when I felt the end move past my hips. Turning my upper body, I wrapped my hands around the metal, took a deep breath and pushed. It moved a couple of inches, raising the metal that had me trapped, then the curved edge slipped and I banged my fists onto something hard enough to skin all my knuckles and draw blood.

  Exhaling slowly, fighting the pain, I took another breath as I turned the strut to a new angle. Pushing again, I felt it start to slip before catching an irregularity on the surface of the plate that was trapping me. With renewed effort I pushed, barely able to stifle the scream of effort that wanted to erupt from my throat.

  With excruciating slowness, the pressure on my hips and legs lessened. Arms shaking from exertion I turned my lower body until I was straight, ass flat against the floor. Strength waning, I slowly lowered the makeshift lever. I expected the pressure to come back on my legs, but it didn’t. The strut let the plate down, no longer supporting its considerable weight, and I could wiggle my hips freely.

  Pushing the lever out of my way, I breathed a relieved sigh and started squirming my way free. It took several minutes, and I had to move numerous large pieces of wreckage that were tumbled near my head, but I eventually stood up. Immediately I bent to rub my throbbing legs, taking the opportunity to look around.

  From my new perspective I realized that the Osprey had come to rest on its roof. I had been pinned beneath a section of the floor decking that had torn lose when we crashed. A large hole was ripped in the side of the fuselage to my right, the rear door completely missing. The daylight I’d been able to see earlier had been through the opening where the rear ramp had once been.

  Night vision goggles had been on my head when I’d boarded at the casino, but they were nowhere to be found. I didn’t waste much time looking for them, deciding to throw caution to the wind and show a light. I was more concerned with knowing what had happened to Katie and everyone else than I was with being spotted by an infected. I was free and able to fight if the female came back.

  The short Sig rifle had a small, high-intensity flashlight clipped on the right side rail. Clicking it on, I got a good look at the interior of the Osprey. What had been a Spartan space that was free of clutter was now hardly recognizable. Wreckage was everywhere. The seats that had been pulled free to make room for Katie and Martinez had almost certainly become large missiles from the force of the crash.

  Ignoring the damage, I started looking for bodies, finding several. The first was the infected soldier I’d killed as he tried to snack on my leg. The two Marines who had accompanied Zemeck were tumbled within a pile of seats, both appearing to have died during the crash. Another Army uniform caught my eye, white bone poking through the heavy fabric in a couple of places. The soldier’s neck was at an unnatural angle and almost certainly broken.

  There weren’t any other bodies inside the aircraft other than the two pilots. They were still strapped into their seats, hanging upside down, both quite dead. Looking at the large holes in the side and rear of the Osprey, I turned off the light and stepped out into the night. I expected to find bodies strewn in the wake of our crash, and I wasn’t wrong.

  Immediately outside, I encountered the remains of what had to be the small boy. There was nothing left other than shredded clothing, bones and a lot of blood that had soaked into the soil. Not bothering to scan the area for infected, or other threats, I ran to the closest body. A female, most likely infected and her throat most certainly torn out by Dog. I found four more dead females, then spotted a male form.

  I bypassed it when I saw the Army uniform, my breath catching when I saw a crumpled form with lots of exposed skin gleaming in the moonlight. Katie had been forced to wear a thong and a small, frilly bra by her captors, and was still barely dressed when we got on the aircraft.

  Relief flooded through me when I got close enough to the body to see the blonde hair. I didn’t need to check anything else. Katie had tried blonde, once, many years ago. It hadn’t worked and she had stayed with her natural red ever since.

  Moving on, I found two more soldiers and another dead infected female. Looking ahead, back down the raw score carved in the ground by our crash, I didn’t see any more bodies. Scanning to the sides I spotted more to my left. Two more of the scantily clad women. One of them had long, dark hair and a very similar build to Katie. I only had to check her hip. The absence of the small, unique tattoo was all the confirmation I needed to be certain this wasn’t my wife. Then I found my friend.

  Master Gunnery Sergeant Matt Zemeck was on his back, head turned up as if he were looking at the stars. A large piece of jagged metal protruded from his chest and his right leg was bent back at an impossible angle. I stood looking down at him, trying to process his death.

  There’s always someone you encounter in life, especially in the military, who seems larger than life. Indestructible. Like they could walk into hell itself, rip Satan’s heart out and be back in time for a cold beer with their friends. That had been Matt. Now he was gone, trying to help me.

  I knelt and opened his vest, removing his dog tags. I dipped my head to slip the chain around my neck and paused when something that didn’t belong caught my eye. A thin, silver oval was nestled between the two, rubber encased tags. Holding it up to the moonlight I recognized Chris, his wife, who had died during the attacks in New York. Saying goodbye to my friend, I put the dog tags in place and stood to continue my search.

  After five minutes of sweeping the area I didn’t find any other bodies. One soldier missing. Two of the women rescued from the casino missing. Stephanie and the other kid were nowhere to be found. No Katie, Rachel, Martinez or Dog. What the hell?

  Climbing back into the Osprey I used the light to conduct a more thorough search of the debris. I didn’t think I could have missed them, and the dead females indicated Dog had survived the crash, but where the hell were they? Ten minutes later I had checked everywhere large enough to conceal a body and went back outside.

  Light off, I started walking a circle around the crash site, expanding the radius from the aircraft on each lap. I kept this up until I had circled beyond the initial impact point. There weren’t any more bodies to be found.

  With a start I realized I hadn’t been looking for everything I should have. I was so focused on finding bodies that I hadn’t been looking for tracks. We had come down in a large field that was growing something green and low to the ground that I couldn’t identify. The soil was soft and loose, and I cursed my own stupidity for stumbling around and mucking up any tracks that had to be present.

  It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. A large group had approached the crash sight from the east. I was able to identify more than ten different sets of tracks, some of them barefoot. Squatting over them I reached down and lightly touched the ground.

  Where the toes and balls of their feet had come down, they had struck the ground w
ith a lot of force, pushing deeply into the rich soil. The people who had left these marks were running at a sprint. Female infected.

  I tried to get a better count, but couldn’t find an area where they hadn’t run on top of each other’s footprints. There were several of them was the best I could come up with. Standing, I turned to go get a count of dead females and examine them more closely. Looking at the ground as I turned I moved right into the grasp of an infected male. It was the missing soldier.

  He wrapped me up instantly, pulling against me like he was trying to give a bear hug. His head lunged forward, teeth snapping and I nearly lost a chunk of my face before I got my right hand up and on his throat. My left arm was pinned between our bodies and if I released the grip on him to reach for a weapon his teeth would be tearing me open in a heartbeat.

  Struggling, I tried to break away, pushing hard and moving his head back, but was unable to loosen the arms circling my body. Squeezing with my right hand I hoped to cut off his air, or the blood supply to his brain, but he seemed impervious to my efforts.

  My left arm was straight down between our bodies, and as I grunted with the exertion of keeping his teeth away I realized exactly where my hand was. Turning my wrist I grabbed between his legs, adjusting until his testicles were firmly in my hand. With a solid grip I pulled and squeezed with all my strength.

  He didn’t react in the slightest. His arms didn’t relax an ounce of pressure and he never wavered in his attempts to bite. Continuing to apply pressure I felt one of his balls rupture, then twisted and applied force to the second one until it gave with another sickening pop. He never flinched and showed no awareness of an injury that would normally put the meanest, toughest man in the world on the ground.

  4

  Struggling with the male, I tried to twist in his embrace but couldn’t rotate my body. He was nearly as large as me, and in his infected state was stronger. My advantage was speed and agility, and maybe intelligence, but wrapped in his arms as I was, most of my strengths were negated. Feeling desperation creeping in, I pushed harder against his throat and moved my feet to dance with him.

  He was trying to move me off balance and take me to the ground. Losing my footing and ending up rolling around in the dirt would benefit him and put me in an even more compromised position. Still trying to twist my body and pull my left arm free to reach a weapon, something crashed into us and sent us sprawling.

  When we hit, he landed on his back with all of my weight coming down on his chest. Whatever had struck us was attacking me, tearing at my right shoulder and arm, but the bear hug had loosened and with a herculean effort I broke free and rolled. I left the male behind, but my attacker came with me, screaming right next to my face. A female had joined the party.

  Still rolling, I reached for the new arrival, hands finding long hair, which I grasped and pulled hard to control her head. I was caught off guard when I was able to pull the body completely off of me and send it tumbling away towards the male. Scrambling to my feet I grasped the hilt of my Kukri and whipped it up as the little girl we had rescued with Stephanie leapt at me.

  A month ago the sight of a child would have caused hesitation, but I’d learned they are just as dangerous and determined as an infected adult. Turning the blade I met her charge and buried the weapon to the hilt in her small throat. Yanking the Kukri free, I killed the male who was just rising to his knees.

  Weapon still in hand, I stayed in a partial crouch, knees flexed, scanning all around me for any more attackers. Not seeing any within range of my vision, I quickly cleaned the steel on the dead male’s uniform, sheathed it and pulled my rifle up. With the night vision scope I repeated my scan of the surroundings, standing up straight and relaxing slightly when I didn’t spot anything else moving.

  With a deep breath I turned a full circle again, still finding the area clear. Moving quickly I checked each body I could find. Nine dead females that I didn’t recognize. Four of them appeared to have been killed by Dog, their throats torn out and deep, defensive wounds on their arms where they had tried to stop him.

  Five more had large wounds in their torsos and heads. Large, ragged holes. I stood staring down at one of them, finally turning my flashlight back on after checking the area again for threats. It came on, then quickly dimmed. Squatting down for a better look before it completely died, I was at a loss. These were definitely not bullet holes, or wounds from any type of firearm I was familiar with. Neither were they knife or dagger wounds. What the hell had killed them

  Putting it aside for the moment, I started looking for tracks again. I had to move well away from the crash sight and all of the disturbed ground before I found where they had walked away to the east. A mix of shoe prints and bare feet. And right in the middle, every track clear and crisp, Dog’s paw prints. Moving to the side of their path so I didn’t disturb them I followed the tracks for close to a hundred yards.

  For long stretches, Dog’s trail was pristine as he’d obviously been following. Then it would swing out to the side and make a large half circle that would intersect with the trail and all but disappear in the jumble of marks in the soft soil. This told me he was shadowing the group.

  Sometimes at the back, which is when he would leave clear tracks, others ranging ahead which is why some of his prints were lost in the passage of human feet. There was also one time where a set of three tracks left by unshod horses had come in from the south and intersected Dog’s circle around the group, but they had peeled away to the southeast and didn’t seem to be following the infected.

  But had they taken my group? I didn’t see any other explanation. I couldn’t imagine Rachel, Katie or Martinez willingly leaving me behind. For that matter, the last time I saw them, Katie and Martinez weren’t in any condition to set off on a hike across Oklahoma. Fear sent a thrill through me. Had they turned? Maybe they weren’t taken. Maybe they had joined.

  I was only sure of one thing. Rachel, uninfected, must have been with the group or Dog would not have followed. But I was still at a loss as to why I was left behind, alive. I forced myself to not think the worst. Katie was fine, not turned, and I wasn’t going to stop until I got her and everyone else back.

  Scanning around me again, I trotted back to the crash to find my pack. It took some searching and digging through the debris, but I eventually found it buried under a jumbled pile of seats. Opening it up I quickly checked the contents and discarded as many items as I felt I could do without. I was going to follow the group and needed to lighten my load as much as possible so I could move faster.

  While searching for the pack I’d come across the M4 rifle that I had left with Stephanie when I went into the casino. I liked the little Sig that Zemeck had given me, but it fired low powered, nine-millimeter pistol rounds, which were perfectly suitable for CQB. But I was back outside, moving across open country and might need something with a little more oomph behind it.

  Pushing the Sig onto my back, I slung the M4 and scavenged full magazines from the dead Marines and Soldiers. Taking a few minutes to prepare an MRE, I stood thinking about my situation as I wolfed it down.

  We had taken off from the casino, heading south to reach Tinker Air Force Base. It was about ten minutes, I thought, into the flight when the engines shut down. Why the hell had that happened? I had no clue, and it didn’t matter. It had, and we had crashed.

  Ten minutes in the air before going down meant I was somewhere between twenty and thirty miles south of the casino. I remembered driving through that area the previous night and not seeing anything other than an occasional farmhouse. It had been dark, but there had been enough moonlight to see fields under cultivation stretching away to the horizon.

  The crash had been shortly before sunrise of the day that had already passed. And now it was dark again and I had no idea what time it was. Had the sun only gone down an hour ago, or…? It didn’t matter. I could run at night just as easily as in the day. There was enough light from the moon for me to see, and I’d probably co
ver more ground without the heat of the sun beating down on me.

  Finishing the last of the meal I tossed the packaging onto a pile of debris and drank deeply from my water. Working the pack onto my shoulders, I adjusted the straps and took another look around the area with the rifle’s night vision scope. Satisfied all was clear, I set off at a run, following the tracks that went east.

  5

  Running across the fields was just as difficult as I expected. My direction of travel was perpendicular to the rows of cultivated produce, so rather than a normal stride I had to lift each foot and pay close attention to where I brought it down. Miscalculating a step could result in a sprained ankle at best, a broken leg at worst. The former would be a serious problem, the latter most likely a death sentence.

  After covering close to a mile, and several fields, I had to slow to a walk. The extra effort required to move on the difficult footing coupled with the weight of my pack was quickly draining my energy reserves. I was panting and sweating heavily, fighting dizziness that I was sure came from the concussion I’d suffered during the plane crash.

  Striding along, spanning a furrow with each step, I finally succumbed to my injuries and leaned to the side to throw up. Most of the MRE and water I’d consumed before heading out came gushing, my stomach continuing to spasm long after it was empty. Straightening up, the world around me spun for a moment and I almost pitched over. I must have looked like a drunk, standing their swaying as I fought the waves of nausea.

  Closing my eyes I breathed deeply through my nose, willing my body to settle down and let me push on. Eventually the worst of the disorientation passed and I was able to open my eyes without getting sick. My head pounded and my vision was blurry, but at least I was able to stay on my feet. I took a mouthful of water, swished it around and spat it out, then took a few small sips. Thankfully my system didn’t rebel.