The Infection

“There were things in the garage, Sarge. Fucking monsters. Dark shapes that flitted around the cars, always just out of sight. Then we saw one. A giant bloated thing covered in elephant trunks that boomed like a foghorn. When it made that sound, the trunks stuck out straight, shaking. Like something out of a nightmare. It pushed cars out of its way. Made you want to puke just to look at it. Then we saw a little white, hairless monkey with thick insect legs, barely able to walk. It was sickly, diseased. It could barely see. It was in pain. It was like a newborn, Sarge. A freak of nature that somehow survived against all odds and was walking along making this bizarre clicking noise in its throat. Kind of sad, like a little kid looking for his family.

“The little bastard jumped on Ducky. The only way I could get it off was to cut it with my knife. Ducky went down, saying he was hit. The thing had sharp teeth and had been biting around Ducky’s throat, so I assumed that’s where he was wounded, but I couldn’t find a wound. His neck was wet but there was no blood. So I asked him where he was wounded, and he said his hip. The little fucker had used his teeth like he used his arms and legs, to hold on. It was… I don’t want to say what it had been doing to Ducky’s hip, but it was unnatural. It… stabbed him, with this big stinger between its legs, like a barbed scorpion’s tail. The puncture left a massive bruised lump. He insisted on driving. I had to help him into the rig. He could barely walk.”

Steve stops talking. Sarge takes a few moments to rub his eyes. Outside, the horde of Infected continue making noise like a house being slowly ransacked, barely audible over the loud hum of the Bradley’s engine. He hears no more gunfire.

“Ducky,” Sarge says into the microphone attached to his helmet, “do you copy?”

I’m okay, Sergeant, the driver answers.

“How’s that wound?”

I said I’m okay.

“We’ll pull over at the nearest safe point and get it looked at.”

By who? Who’s going to look at it?

Sarge does not know how to answer. The fact is they have little in the way of real medical supplies, no medical knowledge, no medevac. They are completely on their own.

I’m still fit for duty. So let me do my job while I still can.

Sarge nods grudgingly. He does not know what to say. Perhaps he should just say thanks.

“You sit tight,” he says, gritting his teeth. “We’re going to try to find help for you.”

Sergeant, I just wanted to say—

The air fills with an enormous roar of rage so pervasive that at first Sarge is convinced that it originated inside his own head.

♦

The survivors flinch at the sound and stare at each other, their eyes big and watery. The roar stops as suddenly as it began, replaced by pounding footsteps and a sudden boom that makes the rig tremble like a gong. The sound rattles through their bodies and hums in their brains, knocking out every thought as effectively as high voltage. They wince and cup their ringing ears in the aftermath. Then another boom, jostling them, vibrating deep in their chests.

The roar again, filling the air, followed by another BOOM. Something is hitting the Bradley repeatedly. The rig tries to speed up, lurches, corrects itself. Wendy sees Paul huddled with his arms wrapped around his ribs, his eyes clenched shut and his mouth working silently. She never saw the Reverend pray before. She finds it deeply disturbing, the idea that the Bradley is unsafe.

The roar never seems to end. It cascades in waves of endless despair and rage that scrapes its nails repeatedly over the chalkboard of her nerves. It fills the air so completely she finds herself struggling to breathe it. She still has enough sense to understand that whatever is out there, it is big and powerful and angry. She has a moment to wonder about the size of its lungs. Then her mind blanks out completely as the terrible sound of the attack builds and builds. The sound finally punches its way out of the paper bag of Wendy’s mind and she screams, the sound tinny and distant and lost like a child shouting in a wind tunnel. She reaches out and Todd clasps her hand tightly before another boom jostles them violently against the boxes and each other. Todd lashes out with his other hand, pushing at the boxes in blind panic. Across from her, Anne is shouting angrily and Paul is grimacing and cupping his ears with his palms.