Lost Roads (Benny Imura 7)

The massive dog uttered a ferocious growl and plowed into the attackers, slashing at them with the spikes that jutted from his heavy armor. Sombra, however, held his ground, growling but clearly too terrified to attack these strange creatures.

The attackers were not shamblers. They wore military uniforms or white lab coats, and

a few had on the bland coveralls of janitors. She knew at once that these were the same kind of killers who’d attacked the school. Their faces were twisted into masks of total madness. They were faster and even more wild than ravagers, some carrying weapons like knives, scissors, tree branches, and rocks. One had a chopper torn from a paper cutter, which he brandished like a sword. They screamed terrible, prolonged wails of bottomless hate as they boiled through the shattered windows like cockroaches exposed to sudden light and attacked with a level of mania Gutsy had never seen.

Grimm tore apart the first wave of them, but many more were fighting their way past the razor-sharp teeth of glass still stuck in the window frame. Gutsy scrambled to her feet as Ledger rose to one knee, his big automatic in his hands as he fired and fired. Thunder boomed in the confines of the car wash, and every bullet the soldier fired hit a target, there were so many of these mad killers. Some fell, crippled and bleeding dark red blood, but even they tried to crawl forward to kill.

Gutsy had a machete strapped to her hip that she’d gotten from the general store. The crowbar had been useful, but it was heavy and slow, and she’d always preferred the wide-bladed knife. But as she pulled it free, the weapon felt suddenly inadequate. There were so many of them, and it felt like trying to stop a hurricane with an umbrella. She backed away, edging toward the big double doors to the underground corridor.

The slide locked back on Ledger’s pistol, and he reached for a fresh magazine, swapping it in place while backpedaling. Grimm, superbly trained, turned and attacked the infected who tried to take advantage of the brief pause. The new magazine in place, the slide snapped into position, and soon Ledger was firing again. The display of marksmanship was impressive, but Gutsy saw with horror that there were no additional magazines on the captain’s belt. Ten of the attackers lay dead and five others were wounded, but there had to be twenty or more still crowding in.

Gutsy turned and looked at the tunnel doors, which were a dozen feet behind them. Ledger and Grimm were holding the line, but if they turned to run, the horde would pour in and overwhelm them before they could get to the tunnel. And even if they somehow managed it, the doors might not hold. The reality chilled her to the marrow.

They were going to lose.

“No!” she growled, and leaped forward, swinging the machete, cutting with the heavy blade. Sombra, confused about what he should do, retreated to the wall and crouched there, tail between his legs, shivering and wretched.

Each blow of the machete did awful damage to reaching arms or howling faces, but cleaving through muscle and bone sent painful shocks up Gutsy’s arm. They battled on, and time lost all meaning. Her arms moved, her feet adjusted to drive power into each blow or shifted to yield ground. Breath burned in her throat, and her heart beat like a snare drum.

“Gutsy,” roared Ledger, “retreat left.”

At first it seemed like a crazy suggestion, because to go left would be to move between the wall and the rusted heap of a delivery van, which was the long way to the tunnel. But then she understood. The van was parked close to the wall, which gave only a narrow alley for the attackers to come at them two or three at a time. The longer way to the tunnel was the safer, smarter choice. Maybe the only possible choice.

All of this flashed through Gutsy’s mind, and she began edging that way. The shrieking horde followed.

They’re not smart, Gutsy thought as she swung her blade with each sideways and backward step. They want to kill us so much that they can’t plan the best way to do it.

Even as she fought, Gutsy’s logical mind was assessing and evaluating. The intelligence of these creatures was greater than the shamblers—evident by their use of weapons—but less than the ravagers, who could plan and strategize. She also noticed that none of the ones she fought had obvious bite marks. Virtually all shamblers did, because that was usually how they died. Ravagers had some, but not always. These new mutations—if that’s what they were—had none.

A killer swung a broken broom handle at her, and as Gutsy ducked, she chopped down on his foot. The thing toppled over and screamed, but whether it was in pain or frustration, Gutsy couldn’t tell. Although not badly injured, the fallen attacker caused two more of them to trip over him. Gutsy took one across the back of the neck, and Grimm ripped the other apart. A few feet to the left, Ledger was burning through his last magazine. There were heaps of dead now, but more seemed to be coming out of nowhere, drawn by the noise of combat. They tripped over corpses and crawled forward, compelled by their awful bloodlust.

The only advantage Gutsy, Ledger, and Grimm had was how tight the space was for the fight. If this attack had taken place in the open, they would have been overwhelmed already. Here, though, the infected had to come at them in a half circle, and the floor was littered with their own dead, creating obstacles. Grimm further disrupted things by hurling his bulk against the legs of undamaged killers, breaking bones and dropping them before slashing their throats and faces with his shoulder spikes.

Ledger’s magazine was spent, and, without the slightest pause, he rammed the empty pistol into the face of one of the maniacs, kicked another in the hip so that it fell back against two others, and drew his sword with movement fast as lightning. Suddenly the air was filled with drops of red as the attackers seemed to fly apart.

One of the killers dove at Gutsy, but she twisted around and chopped down with the blade. The lunge turned into a fall, and Gutsy smashed down with the butt of the machete.

“Into the tunnel!” roared Ledger as he backed away, losing ground step by desperate step. “Get ready to close the doors!”

Behind them, the big set of double doors stood slightly ajar, and beyond that was the slope that led down from the fake office of the Texas Rose Car Wash to the corridor that ran straight to a secret entrance in the hospital. It was the only possible way out, but they had to get inside and pull those doors closed.

Gutsy had no choice; she had to retreat, but these savage living dead were everywhere. Some were clearly smarter than their fellows, and these few seemed to understand what she was doing. Their howls changed in pitch as four of them tried to circle her. Gutsy swung her weapon with all her strength. Pain bloomed like heat in her shoulders and lower back, and her breath rasped out of her. There was no time to rest.

Then the blade of her machete missed a killer as an infected woman leaned back to evade the blow. None of los muertos had ever done that before, and even the ravagers were often incapable or unwilling to get out of harm’s way. But this female soldier did it, and as a result Gutsy’s blade struck the thigh of the maniac next to her and lodged tight in a heavy femur bone. The infected woman grinned like a ghoul, grabbed the handle of the blade, and tore it from Gutsy’s grasp with such force that it knocked Gutsy off balance. She fell onto a killer whose skull she’d crushed. The monsters howled in delight and rushed to leap on her.

But something struck the infected woman like a missile, driving her back into the others.

Sombra.

Somehow the coydog had fought past his own terror and helplessness, for her. Or maybe there was only so far the dog part could go before the feral coyote emerged. The coydog’s powerful jaws snapped, and the female soldier’s reaching arm was suddenly handless.

“Noooooooo!” screamed Gutsy. To bite the dead meant that infected blood and tissue were now in the animal’s mouth. In Sombra’s saliva.

The coydog had reverted to pure predator, shedding its concern for its own life in order to protect the first human who’d shown him kindness. It was an act of both animal savagery and of love.

Gutsy, riding on the edge of panic, snatched up her machete, shook off the dead hand that still gripped it, rose to her feet, and attacked. If her coydog was going to die, then it would not be in vain. She swung and smashed and cut and chopped, and the screaming infected fell before her.

Ledger was fighting now with his katana, and the sword was a glittering blur, as if he was painting the air with molten silver. He body-blocked Gutsy sideways, knocking her toward the van, and then stepped in front of her. Grimm smashed into anyone who tried to grab her. Gutsy lost sight of Sombra and screamed.