Five Roads To Texas | Book 11 | Reciprocity [Sidney's Way 3] Read online

  She observed the infected for a moment as they fell to their knees, plunging their hands into the warm flesh of the deer. These, like most she’d seen recently, looked like they were starving. The millions of ears of corn that had sustained the ones in the local area through the summer and fall were long-dried and shriveled husks that held little nutrients. She was sure if she cut open their stomachs, there would be undigested corn kernels filling their bellies. If they weren’t so incredibly dangerous, she might have felt sorry for them.

  Sidney considered putting a few of them out of their misery, but decided against it. The damn things weren’t very smart, but even they would have to realize that somebody was shooting at them. About the only thing that overrode their hunger was the desire to spread the illness that afflicted them. They’d abandon the deer and come after her and Mark.

  “Okay, it’s time to go,” she whispered.

  “No meat today?”

  “No meat today,” Sidney confirmed.

  They were already feeling the pinch in their bellies after being forced to leave the Campbell farm. There, they’d had refrigeration, a vegetable garden in the summer, cattle and chickens for milk and protein, and even central heating against the winter chill. That luxury had allowed them to all sleep in separate rooms and enjoy privacy.

  Their current hideout was easily defended, but almost all of the amenities were gone. Only one of Vern’s cows had made it. The others had been killed by the infected along the route between the two places. They still had nine chickens and one ornery rooster, but their egg production had been sparse since the move. The chickens and the cow were under guard twenty-four-seven. They were the group’s sole source of fresh nutrients. Everything else was coming from canned food right now. That had to change.

  Sidney shifted to stand up and felt her hip bone dig into the ground. She’d always been rail-thin, but after Lincoln’s birth, she’d enjoyed seeing a few tiny curves in the mirror. Those were already gone.

  “Follow me,” she directed, ordering Mark to trail behind her. She wasn’t a military person—hell, to be honest, she’d been a city hippie before everything went to shit and didn’t really like the military or what it represented. But she’d fallen into the role easily out here. The militia-like nature of their little group was the only thing keeping them alive. Without all the guns and ambush tactics that Vern knew, they would have been dead a hundred times over. She may not have liked the military, but she was damn good at it.

  Sidney and Mark made their way down the middle of a country dirt road that was lined with stalks of dried corn. A few weeks ago, she’d been worried that their tracks in the snow could lead the Iranians to their new home and tried to brush snow over them, but Vern had calmed her down a bit. The infected wandered all over the place, so there were human footprints covering the landscape. Their presence wouldn’t be of any use to an Iranian tracker.

  Not trying to disguise their trail saved them a massive amount of time, which was good because Sidney’s breasts ached. She needed to drain them. Baby Lincoln had stopped suckling at her, but she still pumped what little milk she was able to produce into bottles for him. She didn’t make enough on her own to nourish the boy, so she supplemented with formula, which, consequently, is how Mark came to be with their group when Jake found him at the grocery store.

  She thought about Jake as she made her way back to the next landmark on the return trip. He often crossed her mind. There’d been a spark between them that neither of them had bothered to deny. His relationship with Carmen had complicated their feelings for one another, but now that the Hispanic woman was no longer seeing him…

  It didn’t matter. Jake was an idiot for following after Grady and he was probably dead. The only thing left for Sidney now was to keep her new family safe. She was well-suited for the task. Her fingers tightened around the rifle’s pistol grip unconsciously. She would do whatever it took to ensure everyone made it through this disaster alive.

  The sounds of a truck in the distance sent the two of them into the corn. A single truck drove slowly down the snow-covered road. It was headed in the same direction they were, which meant it was going toward the new hideout. In the back, four soldiers huddled together for warmth. “You ready to earn your pay?” she asked the boy beside her.

  “What pay?”

  She shook her head. “Just set that thing up and wait until they pass. Then hit all of them in the back.”

  Mark set up the machine gun like Vern taught him. He’d done it over and over in the past few days, drilling until Vern was satisfied that he understood the weapon’s functions. It was ridiculously large for the fifteen year-old—or was he sixteen now? His birthday was in early March, but she couldn’t remember what day of the month it was. Her heart was already hammering in her chest.

  “Set,” he stated.

  “You okay with this?” she asked as the truck rumbled closer.

  “It won’t be my first kill.”

  Sidney glanced at the boy. He was set in, ready to fire the machine gun. He looked every bit the hardened warrior that she imagined herself to be. One part of her wanted to applaud his killer instincts and his ability to adapt to their current situation. But the overwhelming feeling that descended upon her was simply that of sadness. It was crazy that such a young man was totally committed to carrying out violence in this screwed up world. That was probably the most frightening part of this whole experience for her. How much farther into madness would they be willing to descend?

  She decided to talk to Mark about his feelings later. For now, facing six Iranian soldiers barreling toward her new home, she needed the killer.

  “Remember,” Sidney said. “Hold your fire until they’re past us, then take out the four in the back. I’ll focus on the driver. We’ll both go for the passenger if they survive.”

  “Got it.”

  They waited in silence for the next thirty seconds as the truck continued to roll up the road. Then it was in front of them, passing by within twenty feet of their position. All four of the men in the back were huddled down against the cold. Sidney knew that Iran was a desert country with a few mountains, but most people lived in the cities. This was probably the first time any of them had ever seen snow.

  And it would be their last.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Mark didn’t say anything. The machine gun barked out his reply. The first few rounds were low, chewing into the tailgate, but he moved the weapon, bringing the tracers up to the bed where the four men hadn’t had time to react to the shooting. Sidney watched in disbelief as he raked the weapon slowly across the men. Calm. The kid was a killer.

  The truck sped up, then veered off into the corn field. “Dammit!” she groaned, standing. The engine revved loudly, carrying the truck away.

  They rushed down the road to the point where it had gone into the corn. Broken stalks clearly showed where the vehicle had gone. Sidney could see the truck pushing its way through the corn slowly, no brake lights indicating that it was stopping anytime soon.

  “I think you might have hit the driver too,” she said.

  Mark shrugged. “Probably.”

  There was no happiness reflected on his face. The youth wasn’t looking to her for praise for a job well done. More concerning, there was no remorse for the fact that he’d likely killed five or six men either. He was simply a blank slate, showing no emotion. It was creepy.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He jutted his chin toward the truck, now several hundred yards away. “We going after them?”

  She looked back to the truck. It was slowing and going less than a couple of miles an hour now. She brought up her binoculars and peered at the truck. She couldn’t see any movement. “I don’t know,” she replied. “We should watch for a few minutes, make sure they’re not trying to lure us in.”

  “Okay.” The boy sat down cross-legged, cradling his machine gun. He stared blankly toward the truck.

  Sidney shook he
r head and returned her attention to the binoculars. The truck had finally rolled to a stop. A head lolled listlessly in the driver’s seat, but that was all she saw. The others had either fallen off the truck or had slumped down inside the bed.

  She was indecisive about what to do. On the one hand, she knew they needed to go out there and make sure they were all dead before they called in reinforcements or returned to their base. On the other, she wasn’t a trained soldier. She’d learned how to ambush small enemy elements, not how to attack a group that would be prepared for another attack.

  “I don’t—”

  She stopped as the field around the truck came alive. Several of the infected emerged from the corn stalks and began grabbing at the bodies to tear meat from them. The dry, hoarse screams of the creatures drifted across the plains.

  All around them, the cries were answered.

  “We need to go. Now,” Sidney said, turning to help the boy up.

  They began jogging slowly. There was a house a quarter of a mile up the road that Vern had cleared and declared as a safe house in an emergency. This was about to become an emergency. The infected who were simply surviving on the dried up corn were going to make their way toward that kill site for the meat.

  “We need to speed up,” she said.

  “I—I can’t with this gun,” Mark grunted.

  “Here. I’ll take it.”

  She took the machine gun from him, surprised at the weapon’s weight. It was much heavier than she’d expected. The gun, combined with all the ammunition in his backpack meant that Mark must have been carrying an extra forty pounds. He was just a kid.

  Sidney’s biceps burned from carrying the weapon and her fingers were numb. The screams were louder now, coming from all sides. The house was only a few hundred feet further.

  She stumbled. The heavy barrel caught on the hard asphalt below the snow and Sidney fell. Mark turned and raced back to her. He pulled her to her feet and she tried to retrieve the machine gun, but her fingers refused to cooperate.

  “Leave it!” Mark hissed, pulling her arm.

  The machine gun was their best hope at fending off a crowd of infected, but he was right. The weapon was too bulky, too heavy for either of them to carry while they were running. Their bodies simply weren’t capable of doing it. The weapon sat discarded in the middle of the road and they ran.

  She risked a backward glance. Already there were infected streaming across the road toward the sounds of the feast. She prayed that none of them looked toward the house.

  They veered off the road into the yard. The house sat on a small square of uncultivated land a couple hundred yards across with a giant tractor shed in the back. The front door would be locked, but the back door was secured up high where the infected couldn’t accidently unlatch it.

  “Oh shit!” Mark exclaimed. He’d rounded the corner before her. The scream of an infected made her heart sink. There was one in the yard behind the house.

  She came around the corner and saw Mark holding her rifle across his chest to keep the malnourished creature at bay. It scratched at him and attempted to bite over the top of the rifle, but it didn’t have the strength to best the teenager.

  Sidney pulled her pistol from the holster on her hip and shot the thing in the face. The loud report of the pistol firing near his head made Mark drop one end of the rifle and duck away from her in fear.

  “Oww, fuck!” he screamed.

  The body of the infected tumbled back and Sidney grabbed Mark, dragging him toward the back door. Her boots thumped loudly up the old wooden steps and she reached up to unlatch the door. They spilled inside just as more nearby screams filled the morning air.

  She closed the door quietly and locked the deadbolt.

  “Stay out of sight,” Sidney hissed into Mark’s ear. He nodded dumbly, his hand still pressed against the opposite side.

  She took her rifle from him and crab-walked into the living room where the couch would provide her the most concealment. Once there, she peeked around the edges of the couch through the windows into the back yard.

  There were a whole lot of infected in the yard, jostling forward to get to the fresh meat of the one she’d killed. The sight was shocking to her. She knew the fields held the infected. They were like locusts, eating their way deeper and deeper into the cornfields. But she had no clue that there were this many of them out there. They walked the roads almost every day without realizing that they were literally surrounded by them.

  Nearby, machine gun fire chattered. It sounded like it came from where the Iranian truck had veered into the field. The infected in the back yard screeched and began running toward the sounds of battle. The sounds meant there’d be more meat than what the single dead creature in the yard provided.

  In seconds, the farmyard looked clear. The sound of the machine gun was joined by reports from several small caliber rifles. There shouldn’t have been that many men left alive in the truck. She ran to Mark in a crouch, still trying to stay below line of sight through the windows. “I’m going upstairs to see what’s going on.”

  He nodded, pulling a large fixed-blade knife from the sheath on his belt. “I’ll guard the door.”

  She patted him on the arm and went quickly to the stairs. They creaked underfoot as she went up, but it wasn’t loud enough to draw attention from outside the house. There was a bedroom in each of the unimaginative farmhouse’s four corners, so she rushed into the one nearest the sounds of action and brought up her binoculars. She slipped them through the curtains to try to determine what was happening.

  Three more trucks sat in a line on the road. Men fired wildly in all directions from the open beds. She wondered if they’d came to the aid of the single truck that Mark had shot up, or, more concerning, had that first truck been a decoy, meant to lure out the rebels so these next three could wipe them out?

  Sidney was just in time to see the first truck of the new force get overwhelmed by the mass of creatures. They surged over the sides, dragging men down to their deaths. The driver panicked, slamming the truck into reverse. It crashed into the middle truck, sending several of the soldiers in back tumbling to the ground. They were set upon in seconds.

  The third truck reversed course, its men firing into the gathering horde as they retreated. A few of the creatures gave chase, but then quickly turned back toward the guaranteed meal. The two remaining trucks were deadlocked by the press of bodies. All resistance soon stopped as all the soldiers on the outside were killed.

  She watched in horror as the soldiers in the cab of the lead vehicle shot themselves in the head. They would rather commit suicide than become a meal for those things. The men in the second truck attempted to hide, but the infected slammed their heads into the glass. It was only a matter of time until they broke through.

  She’d seen enough. She put away her binoculars and rushed back down the stairs. Now was the best time for them to try their escape while the beasts were distracted by the carnage down the road.

  “Let’s go,” she ordered, reaching down to pull Mark to his feet.

  “Vern said we should wait several hours after they get all riled up.”

  “They’re distracted now. The yard’s clear.”

  “But my machine gun,” he said, pointing out to the road.

  “It’ll be there when we come back in a few days,” she assured him.

  He nodded glumly. “Okay.”

  She twisted the deadbolt and opened the door. As soon as she stepped out onto the back porch, one of the creatures hissed at her.

  Sidney brought up her rifle, finger on the trigger. A skeletal creature crouched near the body of the infected that she’d shot with her pistol. It held an arm, chewing noisily on the flesh of its fallen brother. It eyed her warily, growling as it tore another chunk of flesh from the bone.

  She brought up her suppressed M-4 and aimed. The creature stared at her with malice, but didn’t move to attack. She fired, directly into its forehead, dropping it instantly.


  Sidney relaxed slightly, allowing the barrel of her rifle to dip toward the ground. Behind her, Mark secured the door so they could use the house again if needed.

  She missed Lincoln. She needed to see her baby. “Okay, let’s go home,” she said.

  2

  * * *

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  MARCH 2ND

  Movement in windows told them that they were being watched. Every time Jake tried to see who it was, the faces would disappear, hiding from the soldiers as they’d walked down the wide streets earlier in the evening. It was completely unnerving, more so than the screams of the thousands of infected they’d faced at the waterfront in New Jersey two days ago.

  Jake was already mentally exhausted from being on high alert for the last twelve hours. Their initial plan of motoring up the Bay all the way to the docks north of Manhattan was ruined by the attack from atop the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The damage to one of their boats forced them ashore near Fort Hamilton. They’d attempted to seek entry into the fort, believing that it might be a good place to rest up before pushing northward, but the warning gunfire striking the ground several feet in front of Grady Harper had convinced Jake that there was no help to be found at the small Army base.

  Instead, they made camp in the park, sleeping on the ground in their bivvy sacks. Jake would have preferred a house or some type of structure that they could secure, but they’d wasted too much time trying to get into the old Army base. The darkness was coming quickly and they needed to come up with a new plan for how to get up to Columbia University.

  Now that they were on the ground in the city, their trip seemed to get a lot more dangerous than their original plan to take the boats all the way up the Hudson River. The crucifixes they’d seen, coupled with the raiders of the bridge, made everyone feel like they were in a hostile environment, and would not be welcomed as part of an official government relief effort.