CHAPTER 17

Victor was in a hallway plastered with pictures drawn in bright colored water paint and crayons. Confused, he didn’t know where he was, but the windowed doors lining the long cinderblock hallway told him he was in a school.
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In blood covered hands, he held his AR15. His shoulder ached, and he wondered if he had been shot.

With a closer inspection of the cheerful and colorful artwork taped to the wall, he recognized one of them. His youngest son Zavier had drawn the same image last school year, before the world went dark. Why was he in his son’s school, was there an active shooter? The grip on his rifle tensed and he spun around looking for Zavier’s classroom. At the end of the dark hallway was a massive late-stage Gray that had swollen to twice the normal human size, filled with pus and spores.

The blob of a creature stared at Victor, then took a step forward out of the shadows. Children began to cry. The creature took another step forward fully revealing its mutated form. Sobbing echoed through the hallway. The Gray’s pinpoint pupils were locked on Victor and it took another step forward threatening to pop at any moment. The children’s weeping intensified and grew louder. Victor raised his rifle at the creature.

“Zavier! I’m coming for you buddy!” Victor yelled.

The thick crusted blob began to charge with outstretched bulbous arms scrapping its boney talons across rows and rows of student wall lockers. Sobbing and weeping was so loud that it consumed Victors thoughts. He thumbed his AR15 off of safe, centered the red dot sight on the Gray, and squeezed the trigger which offered the worst noise on the battlefield.

CLICK.

He smacked the bottom of the magazine so hard that it hurt his hand, he pulled the charging handle back quickly, sling-shotting a new round into the chamber, and attempted to fire again. But nothing happened. Victor pushed the magazine release button, yanked the bad magazine from the mag-well while reaching for a fresh mag from his gun belt. The creature continued charging forward.

An index finger guided a fresh heavy magazine into the mag-well, he charged the rifle again watching a perfectly good round eject onto the dirty linoleum flooring and then attempted to fire again. CLICK.

Magazines were inserted, then discarded again and again and again as the rage infested bloated Gray closed in. With his last and final magazine inserted, the rifle finally recoiled with a thunderous muzzle blast. The gelatinous blob absorbed the bullet with no effect.

The creature continued to charge, scrapping talons across the metal lockers. Victor shot again and again and again with no effect. Each muzzle flash illuminating the horror before him like a strobe light. The kids sobbing was stifling. He tried to shake his head to clear his thoughts and pain rushed over him. The creature was almost within reach. Victor toe-to-heal stepped backwards attempting to keep distance. He raised his aim, put the holographic red dot in the center of the creature’s forehead and squeezed the trigger as the creature lunged forward with a wide black mouth full of broken jagged teeth keen on delivering an extinction level plague. 

Victor woke from the nightmare, sitting upright too quickly. A flood of pain and agony caused him to collapse back onto the couch, sweating and lightheaded. Shaken from his nightmare he sat there cursing himself for had fallen asleep. He noticed the room had darkened; the fire was only hot ashes. The same haunting children’s cry escaped his nightmare into the reality, as the Gen 2’s whimpered in the garage, awake once more.

Sitting forward again slowly, a deep breath chilled his lungs, he gained his bearing. Using the coffee table for support, Victor rolled off the couch onto a knee, then lifting to his feet and retrieved his rifle from the coffee table. Moonlight glowed through dingy white lace curtains over large living room windows. Displacing an occasional family portrait, he slid across the wall to keep himself upright as he made his way towards the garage.

Shadows raced across the floor before Victor causing him to freeze in place. A dark shape ran past the dining room sliding door. Outside, Victor could hear frozen blades of grass crunching under soft feet. From inside the garage, he could hear hisses and growls as the Gen 2’s fought against their restraints.

More shadows darted across the walls as infected reinforcements began circling Victor’s hardpoint looking for an entryway. The closer the infected got to the house, the louder the Gen 2’s cried. Pulling back a curtain slightly, he watched Grays of all size spill onto moon lit lawns from the neighboring houses.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” he hissed rubbing his temple trying to ease his splitting headache.

An ear piercing, nails on a chalkboard, scratching resonated from the bedroom where Victor had changed clothes earlier. Boney talons raked across an unseen window. Victor’s heart began to pump an increasing flow of blood into his pounding head that could not remember if he had closed the bedroom door or not. He should go check.

The bedroom window shattered as a Gray’s pointed talons pressed into the glass.

Too late! He thought looking for a defensive position. Looking towards the stairs he quickly debated cornering himself upstairs, but he’d be able to have the high ground while channeling the creatures into a fatal funnel. By the time he committed to the plan and took two steps toward the stairway, Grays came spilling into the hallway from the bedroom.

Victor stumbled to the right into the kitchen and tossed his rifle up onto the marble topped island for support knocking a spice rack and granite pestle to the floor. Aimed in down the hallway, he hit the button on his weapon light and illuminated three large scab covered muscular Grays. Victor sensed that the weapon light dazed them momentarily but didn’t slow them down as they crashed into the hanging family portraits.

Unlike his nightmare, his rifle barked when he squeezed the trigger. Even firing from his uninjured non-dominant shoulder, the recoil sent bolts of excruciating pain through his back. But he continued to fire until the three Grays lay crumpled in the hallway.

He turned his light off to avoid advertising his position. Quickly, Victor took all his AR mags from his pistol belt and chest rig, then laid them on top of the kitchen island. It figures that I’ll die next to a pantry. He thought to himself and wondered if there were any chocolate cookies inside the closed bifold doors for his kids. He actually thought about risking his life to find out.

A living room window right in front of him exploded inward as a beastly Gray smashed through. Victor pumped two rounds into it before the howling creature could untangle itself from the lacey curtain. The next creature came through with such force, it ripped the curtain rod completely from the wall.

Five rounds were waisted as Victor’s rifle sights trailed the creature across the room, until it creamed lifelessly into the far wall knocking down a cursive written ‘Live Laugh Love’ canvas. Movement down the hall drew his attention again as a swarm piled out of the bedroom smashing into each other while racing towards Victor.

With each shot, recoil sent pain down his back and muzzle blast sent nauseating pain rippling through his skull. Yet, he continued aiming through the sights while pressing the trigger at targets rushing towards him. With his rifle propped on the kitchen counter, he transitioned from the hallway, to the living room, then the hallway again until the bolt locked to the rear after the last round in the magazine was sent into the infected frenzy.

All with his left hand he pulled the carbine from the countertop. Clamped the smoking weapon between his knees. Depressed the mag release button. Pulled out the old and inserted a full magazine from the countertop. Hit the bolt release button. Grabbed the pistol grip tightly, swung the rifle up so the muzzle nearly hit the ceiling, seated the buttstock in his shoulder, then lowered the muzzle with control until the red dot sight was centered on the closest creature.

Standing, non-dominant side, one handed unsupported accurate shooting is very doable if you practice Gunfighter training drills, but not for very long if your muscles already ache from a hypothermic helicopter crash. As soon as Victor had a moment, he returned to the kitchen island for a stable supported shooting platform.

The more he shot, the louder the Gen 2 toddlers shrieked. The louder they shrieked; the more Gray’s spilled through the windows into the house. His weapon light was stunted by the cloud of stirred up dust and gun smoke. Traversing faster and faster from an intensifying flow of hallway targets to living room targets, he began havening doubts about ever seeing Erica and his children again. The panic feeling that woke him from his nightmare had returned.

On his last AR magazine, Victor was contemplating making a mad melee dash towards the stairway to barricade himself in an upper level bedroom. But the Gray’s were so thick, he would likely not make it out of the kitchen in one piece.

His rifle went dry. There were no more loaded mags waiting for him. He dropped the rifle on the countertop and reached across his body for his pistol as he did before. While he was gaining a better grip on the handgun, he felt a heavy vibration beneath his feet that caused the pile of empty shell casings to roll across the hardwood kitchen floor.

Green glowing tritium dots aligned on the nearest Grays forehead, and he gently squeezed the pistol’s trigger to the rear with the finesse of a thousand perfectly practiced presses. Firing with only with his left hand, the pistol recoiled up and to right and he fought to get it back on target quickly.

Grays climbing over a pile of dead comrades were revealed as bright lights shined into the house as Victor continue to fire his pistol into the swarm. Victor was consumed in the fog of war; tunnel visioned and did not process the exterior lights illuminating the close quarters battle. If anything, realizing the overwhelming number of targets made matters worse and harder to compartmentalize.

Find the closest threat. Focus its disgusting face. Bring the pistol to line of sight on target. Take out the trigger slack. Flash sight picture. Smooth and consistent pressure to the rear. BANG! Repeat.

Find the closest threat. Focus on its disgusting face. Bring the pistol to line of sight on target. Take out the trigger slack. Flash sight picture. Smooth and consistent pressure to the rear. BANG! Repeat.

It wasn’t until he had shot his last pistol round from his last magazine that he broke from the killing trance. Looking at the pistol slide locked to the rear, Victor tossed his handgun on the counter, grabbed a carving knife from a wood block and stabbed the last wounded creatures to death. It was only then, that he noticed an intense battle raging outside the house.

Exhausted, he sat back heavily against the kitchen island. The rooms before him were littered with piles of riddled infected corpses. He closed his eyes and listened to the muffled symphony of machine guns playing his favorite song.

“Friendlies coming in!” Someone from outside yelled.

“Come on in.” Victor mumbled incoherently and barely audible, “But I’m not opening the door for you.”

The front door smashed open, splintering the door jam and trim. Victor couldn’t open his eyes from fatigue.

“Man, look at this mess….” A rough voice trailed off as he inspected the carnage and pile of brass on the kitchen floor. The man who sat on the floor before him had a bandaged arm secured in a sling, two swollen black eyes, and barely looked conscious. “Hey buddy, I have a cold beer in my truck. You look like you need to hydrate.”

Victor chuckled, which caused him to wince. “Did we win?” he asked.

“Well, we are still breathing. So, I guess we won, for today anyways.” The man said without conviction.

“How’d you find me?” Victor asked, his head lopping to the side.

“Was on highway cleanup detail when we watched your helicopter go down. Followed a smoke trail for a while, until we realized it was coming from a fireplace and not the crash site. We made it to the subdivision by dark and then lost all trace, until a Marine found the chimney’s heat signature in the 25mm cannon’s thermal sights.” the man informed Victor.

“Just in time too.” Victor thanked him.

“Yeah, appears so. You look like a can of smashed assholes.” The savior said. “Here, let me help you up.”

Cracking his puffy eyelids slightly, Victor seen an outstretch muscular forearm tattooed with a T-Rex dinosaur holding an American flag and an M60 machine gun. Victor accepted the callused hand, looked up into the face of friendly man with an impeccable military haircut and mustache. “Thank you.”

“I’m Chuck.” He said, helping Victor to his feet. “We got a convoy out there to medi-vac you back to the island. I’m guessing that you’re the only one?”

“Yeah, the air crew didn’t make it.” Victor said shaking his head slightly. “But we can’t go back to the island yet. I have five priority prisoners that need transported to USAMIIR.” Pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards the garage that continued to hiss and howl.

Chuck put his foot against the garage door so it could only open a sliver. He shined his light inside. “Oh man. I don’t know about all that. I don’t much like the living version of them little critters. I prefer them, you know, horizontal and not breathing!”

“Where’s your sense of adventure. It’ll be fun.” Victor said, then winced in pain as he turned his head too quickly dropping the dark infected blood covered knife on the counter in exchange for his guns. “What could go wrong?”