Threnody (Book 1) (27 page)

Ethan continued as if he hadn’t heard him.  “The back is the only area we haven’t been able to recon, so be careful as you approach the rear of the structure as we don’t know exactly what we’ll find.  Once inside, watch your corners and cover each other as you clear the rooms in the back of the house.  Pay attention to everything—furniture, closet doors, doorways leading to other rooms—anywhere those assholes could be hiding.  We don’t want any surprises.  I will come in through the front so check your fire.  I’ll stay low, and unless these guys have changed clothes, there shouldn’t be any issue telling them apart from me.  We’ll both clear right, so once I make it to the back and you guys to the front, the first floor should be clear.  Questions?”

John looked up at Ethan who stood there like General Patton after addressing the United States Third army, and said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy, right?  Let’s go.”

The three-man assault team moved around the house to their respective positions.  Almost immediately John heard the volley of suppressed shots coming from the other side of the house.  With careful, deliberate shot placement, John began sending lead of his own downrange.  The three men operated as if they were a seasoned fire squad with at least thirty revs falling victim to death’s final embrace in less than twenty seconds.  Acquire target, breath, squeeze, acquire target, breath, squeeze.  To John, the staccato popping sounds of the three suppressed weapons sounded vaguely like popcorn in the microwave.

Out of the corner of his eye, John saw Reams dash out of cover and dart across the street to the side of the other house.  As he steeled his own nerves, John was once again amazed at the big man’s speed.  John took a deep breath and, after a ten count, he rushed across the street to his side of the house as planned.  Though he was thankful he made it without any trouble, he was also unnerved by how easy this was so far.

Ethan charged the front of the house laying down his own covering fire from the Five-Seven’s thirty round extended magazine.  Lungs straining and muscles protesting, he crashed hard into the wall next to the front door as he released the spent magazine from the pistol before slamming in a fresh one.  He, too, was a little alarmed at seeing no signs of the bikers inside the house.  “Give up now assholes!” shouted Ethan, loud enough to be sure the two men behind the house could hear him.

John and Reams met at the rear of the house as they rounded their respective corners.  Glancing up onto the back porch they saw no movement.  There were, however, two dead bikers lying on the deck’s wood flooring.  One was nearly decapitated, his head listing severely to the side, barely hanging on by skin and paraspinal muscles.  The other had his pants down around his ankles and multiple stab wounds to the chest.  Both looked like they had been dead for at least a day.  The two men cautiously made their way onto the porch, flattening themselves against the wall to each side of the back door just as they heard Ethan’s signal coming from the front of the house.

Wasting no time, John nodded to Reams, who turned and kicked the flimsy door in with no more effort than if he was simply taking a step.  John burst into the house clearing his side of the room as Reams spilled in behind him doing the same on the opposite side.  The empty room was quiet save for the sound of the two men’s ragged breath that swirled and eddied in their lungs, desperately trying to keep up with the demands of their bodies.

“Clear! Move right,” uttered John in a low voice.  He and Reams pressed against the wall on each side of the door leading to the adjacent room.  After a silent three count, John pushed the swinging door open, allowing Reams to pie the corner as he entered the room.  John followed right on his heels but immediately stopped short.  Both men stood motionless, transfixed by the grisly scene that lay before them.  While no apparent threat could be seen, it was clear that the horrific room had previously held nothing but threats.

The coppery scent of blood from countless individuals mixed with the sour odor of sweat and myriad other indescribable, visceral smells resulted in an intensely unpleasant pungence that, even without the visual evidence, told of the malice the room had witnessed.  John averted his gaze slightly as if that might somehow also offer his nose reprieve from the menacing odor.  Of all the horrible things that came into the world on the wings of the plague, to John the smells always seemed to be the worst.  Considering this previously, he surmised that it was likely due to humans having been constantly bombarded with intense, graphic visual stimuli on television, movies, and even the news leading to desensitization combined with the fact that olfactory stimuli are processed through the limbic system leading to a deep-seated, primitive, emotional component to one’s experience of a particular smell. 

Despite his ardent attempts to deal with the overwhelmingly noxious room, John buckled forward, gagging. 
I bet people wouldn’t be so interested in graphic video games and movies if the smell of the action accompanied the images.
  Slowly and with considerable effort, John recovered enough to stand upright next to Reams, who still looked more horrorstruck than if he had just walked in on his parents while they were having it off.

“My God,” croaked Reams still aghast with incomprehension.  There appeared to be at least three bodies in the room though it was difficult to know for certain.  Such was the brutality of the massacre that occurred within the four walls of the room.  Every conceivable surface was caked in blood and tissue giving it the appearance of the killing room floor in a slaughterhouse.  Several large red lumps lay scattered randomly throughout the room, as if someone had stepped on a landmine or an IED.  John’s eyes settled on the most disturbing aspect of the room—a partially clothed and apparently dead female slumped next to a heavy table.  One hand was tethered to one of the table’s stout wooden legs while the other hand was missing all together.  Her entire body was red and crusted with dried blood.  It was impossible to tell her age as her face was so severely bruised and swollen that it appeared nearly featureless.  Despite this John thought she was at least in her twenties or thirties.  He felt a tinge of guilt at his relief that it was not a younger girl—that it was not Ava. 

The men’s shocked silence was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek emanating from somewhere in the corner behind Reams.  Still completely overwhelmed by the carnage in the room, both men were slow to react to the new stimuli.  John turned in time to see an equally blood-soaked figure lunge toward Reams, who remained oblivious as he gawked at the carnage smeared across the entire room.  The person moved with feral, lightning fast speed so John knew it was not a rev.  One arm was outstretched, but he could not discern the blood-camouflaged object clutched in the sanguineous hand. Instantly, the high-pitched screak of the attacker was joined by an equally blood-curdling outcry as Reams spun, jolted back to reality by the pain radiating from his left arm that was impaled by a blade buried to the hilt in his meaty triceps muscle.

John, too, sprang into motion as the reality of what was happening finally caught up with him.  Before his synapses even had a chance to fire, however, a green blur tore through the door and collided full speed with the red attacker.  The force of the collision sent both figures rolling across the room in a red and green tangle that ended with the green figure in a dominant top position, completely immobilizing the still-shrieking assailant.  As the tumult abated, John’s brain began to compile the details emerging from the settling dust.

Caught off guard by the gruesome scene, both he and Reams failed to notice the fairly camouflaged figure lurking in the corner of the room.  This red figure was a woman so gore-encrusted that she blended almost seamlessly with the sanguine décor of the room.  While she did not appear to be infected, it was impossible to be certain as nary an inch of her body appeared to have escaped the horrors of the room.  Despite her physical appearance, John did not think the small-framed woman looked like the type to run with a gang of bikers.

The green figure that now easily restrained the bloody woman was Ethan, who had likely been finishing his sweep of the opposite side of the house when the woman unleashed her frenzied battle cry.  During the ensuing fray, Ethan’s prosthesis was dislodged.  Remembering his initial reaction upon seeing Ethan’s facial defect, John knew this certainly added to the woman’s anxiety.  Reams stood facing the spot where the woman was hiding moments before, the handle of the knife still protruding from the back of his upper arm.  There was relatively little blood coming from the knife wound, and while John found this encouraging, he still worried the impaled blade could be tamponading bleeding from a serious vascular injury.

Though Ethan had no trouble restraining the small woman, she continued to struggle fiercely – undeterred by his repeated attempts to talk her down.  John recognized the wild-eyed thousand-yard-stare that reflected the horrors she must have witnessed and endured. 
PTSD—she’s in shock.
  Moving to help Ethan, John also tried unsuccessfully to reach her with gentle, soothing words.  Realizing that all she could see was simply two more men attacking her, John and Ethan elected to restrain her feet and hands with lengths of paracord for their protection as well as her own.  They secured her hands behind her back, but they were careful to minimize the pain of her bonds.  As there wasn’t a clean surface in the room, they eased her onto the couch after flipping the cushions over to create a relatively unsoiled surface.

Alone on the couch, the red woman’s struggles slowly subsided as she gazed with intense resignation at her two captors who moved to care for the big man she had stabbed. She snarled inwardly in disgust at not having killed at least one of these ‘monsters.’

Ethan quickly removed a tourniquet from his vest and applied it to Reams’ arm, proximal to the knife wound.  With the tourniquet tight, John held his breath as he removed the knife with slow steady pressure.  Very little bleeding ensued, and he hoped this was not due solely to the effect of the tourniquet.  John doubted this was the case as a significant arterial injury was still likely to bleed some, tourniquet or not.  Slowly he loosened the tourniquet, keeping a watchful eye for a significant increase in hemorrhaging.  A moderate amount of blood pooled and dripped from the laceration, but as it was non-pulsatile, it was unlikely to be arterial bleeding.  Breathing a deep sigh of relief, John cleaned the wound the best he could with the limited medical supplies available.  He packed it with strips of sterile gauze and applied a clean dressing over it.  To his credit, Reams barely made a sound through the ordeal, though John suspected this was as much due to shock as anything else. 

Although less than ten minutes passed since they first entered the room, John could see a definite difference in the big man.  Despite the two people being polar opposites in every other conceivable way, Reams and the red woman both shared the same far off, vacant look in their eyes.  John caught sight of the woman staring intently at him as he worked.  With Ethan off completing a secondary sweep of the house, and Reams still somewhat out of it, John felt unnerved and a little vulnerable under the woman’s scrutinizing stare.  While her size was far from intimidating, the wild, menacing gleam dancing rabidly in her eyes promised to do horrible things to him if given the chance.

“That should do it.  You okay, buddy?” said John as he clapped his friend on his good shoulder. 

“So much blood.  I should have looked closer; I should have seen her…” replied Reams in a choked voice that was little more than a whisper.  He looked straight ahead, staring at something John could not see.

Just as John was about to speak, a different sound filled the void.  A coarse and equally raspy voice that sounded as though it arose from a throat that had been gargling razor blades uttered a single, pained word.

“Sorry.”

Both John and Reams turned toward the sound and were surprised to see a completely different person sitting on the couch.  Though outwardly the woman on the couch appeared unchanged, this red woman’s eyes were softer and glistened, as tears slowly collected in the corners like dewdrops on leaves in the early morning sun.  Looking directly at Reams, she conveyed no malice, but rather seemed as timid as a fawn and as delicate as a spring flower.

Entranced, John watched as Reams stood and walked purposefully over to the couch where the bound woman sat.  Much to his surprise, her amicable demeanor did not shirk away from the behemoth approaching her.  Reams knelt down several feet from the captive woman, and said, “It’s okay.  It’s not your fault.  You don’t know us, and you didn’t know our intentions. The man that tackled you was involved in a fight with the men that brought you here a few days ago.  Do you remember that?  He told us about you, and we agreed to come with him to rescue you.  We don’t mean you any harm.  If you can understand and accept that, I’ll cut your bonds.”

Timidly, the woman nodded her understanding as a single, subtle sob broke within her.  “Please don’t make me regret this,” said Reams as he drew his knife and cut the paracord.

Chapter 29

October 18, 2015

Upon returning from his secondary sweep, a hopeful but uneasy smile crossed Ethan’s face as he saw Reams talking to the freed woman.  He found two dead hostiles on the second floor, and none alive.  While the scene there was not quite as lurid as that on the first floor, the myriad, jagged stab wounds adorning each of the victims made it clear that this was not merely murder by necessity, but rather for retribution.  Ethan knew such things were hard to come back from, and the sight of the likely perpetrator talking nonchalantly to Reams both warmed and chilled his heart.

Perhaps she would recover without being suffocated by the impenetrable callouses that accompany such intense emotional and psychological trauma.  More likely, he feared, the damage was too extensive, and they were merely seeing the initial rays of light shining through the first cracks in her soul.  As he approached the other three survivors, he sincerely hoped the former would prove victorious in the struggle for the poor woman’s sanity.

“Everything good?” asked John as Ethan sauntered up alongside him.

“All clear—two more dead bikers upstairs.  Only a half dozen or so infected still shambling around outside.  How’d she get free?” inquired Ethan, nodding toward the red woman sitting quietly on the couch talking to Reams.  She now looked like the antithesis of the feral, snarling woman he had apprehended and restrained moments ago. 

John explained that Reams cut her bonds after she agreed to behave.  The two men exchanged a concerned, troubled look, and Ethan sensed John shared his reservations about the stability of the woman.  Any way he looked at it, the fact that she was nonchalantly talking to Reams after what must have happened in the house made him seriously question her sanity.

Noticing the two men staring at him, Reams turned to regard them, “John, Ethan, this is Kate Frost.  I was just filling her in on what we know about the situation outside and telling her about your previous encounter with the bikers, Ethan.”

John cut in on the conversation, “Kate, are you injured?  Have you been bitten?  I’m sorry to come right out and ask, but with all the blood, it’s impossible to tell.  You should get cleaned up.  I’m John, by the way.”  He extended his hand slowly, and after a moment, during which she regarded the offered hand as a venomous snake that might strike her at any second, she apprehensively took it in a weak handshake.

Kate pulled her hand back and looked down at herself as if just noticing a fresh wine stain on her new evening gown.  John half expected her to lick her fingertip and start trying in earnest to rub the gore stains from her garments, but she merely stared at her clothes for a moment before looking back to John, with disengaged eyes and shaking her head in the negative. 

“Good. Let me see if I can find somewhere for you to get cleaned up,” said John before turning and heading farther into the house.  For a while the three remaining individuals sat in silence, each considering their own perspective on the situation, and none certain of how best to proceed.  After several minutes, John returned and broke the awkward silence.

“The house still has running water, and I found the biker’s propane stove.  I started heating some water – it should be ready in a few minutes.  There’s a shower and tub in the bathroom down the hall,” said John.

Slowly rising to her feet, Kate’s entire body winced and screamed in protest as the pain of her ordeal seared through every inch of her body.  She wondered when, and if, all the bruises would heal as she hobbled toward the bathroom.  Pausing briefly in the doorway, she half-turned, and said, “Thank you.”

While she washed up John looked through the rooms in the house, found a pair of jeans and a shirt, and placed them just outside the bathroom door for Kate.  Returning to the kitchen, he joined Reams and Ethan at the table.  His legs gave off a nearly audible sigh of relief when he sat down, focusing his attention on just how tired he was. 

“Reams and I were just talking about Kate, and what we should do now,” said Ethan.  “Reams has spoken with her more than either of us, and he seems to think she’s going to be okay.  I voiced my qualms, and I sense you already appreciate my concern.  What do you think we should do with her?”

John had recognized Ethan’s concerns when the two men shared a passing glance earlier and had debated the issue. He tried to empathize with the woman, but knew he would never be able to do so completely. 
What state would I be in after such an ordeal? 
He seriously doubted he would be as well off as she seemed right now.  Further, if she was solely responsible for what happened to the remaining bikers, then she could clearly handle herself.  In the end, he thought of no other reasonable option aside from offering to let her join them if she desired.  Their main concern related to her mental stability, and upon considering that, John surmised that rock-solid mental stability was a luxury that no longer existed in this plague-ridden world.

Considering the question, John spoke, “My goals and plans are still the same.  I am grateful to have found both of you.  Kate is only the fourth uninfected person I have seen since I returned home.  It’s like I told Reams when we spoke about Trenton, we don’t really have the luxury of picking and choosing who we link up with.  Certainly, she has been through a lot, but who hasn’t now?  I say we tell Kate what we know and what our plans are, and ask if she wants to come with us.  If she doesn’t want to do so, we can get her set up in as safe a place as possible, give her some supplies, and let her do her own thing.”

After a pause, Ethan and Reams both nodded in agreement with what John said.  Standing in the adjacent hallway, outside of view, but in clear earshot of the conversation, Kate listened to the men as they spoke amongst themselves.  She, too, agreed with what John said.  They sounded sincere, and she knew that if she was going to have any chance of survival, she was going to have to trust others in spite of the horrors she experienced over the last few days.