Chapter 69

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We took the stairs since the elevator wasn't working due to Peter pressing the STOP button earlier. Descending down the stairs was actually more comfortable than I anticipated, and I didn't need help from Luke for support.

I began to learn about the three strangers. The red-headed woman's name was Harriet, the girlfriend of Austin, the guy in the Saints jersey and red nylon shorts. Austin's roommate was the guy in the glasses, named Corey, who had been rooming with him for over a year. All three of them were juniors at Russell Sage College. Beyond that, I drowned out their voices, and they continued talking and talking, even when Peter told them to shut up or else drew the vectors' attention. Harriet and Austin didn't seem to mind since they kept telling us how they're going to complain about the military and the city government. They planned to put it all over the internet once the cell towers were fixed, letting the world know how the military and the US government ineptly failed to protect the city and let thousands die.

Austin's parents were some big shots in the Silicon Valley, and I frankly didn't give a fuck until his voice (which reverberated through the stairwell and he never tried to whisper) drew a vector toward us. Luckily, the door to the third floor was barred shut, and the vector couldn't come into the stairwell without an ID.

"Quiet!" I snapped. "Do you want to die?"

Harriet scowled at me. "Nobody wants to die. Obvi."

Austin shrugged. "Relax. They're not gonna get in without this." He pulled out his ID from his pocket.

"Some of them have a habit of sneaking up on you. So, zip it. Both of you."

"Hey! You should be thanking us that my boyfriend is letting you borrow his car."

"We can always take it from you," I muttered, but it was too late. I was cranky, irritated, and very late for my pain medication, so I was not in my headspace. But I've said what I said, and there's nothing I could do about it. The woman's eyes bulge out of her head, and Austin's mouth hung open.

"Who the fuck are you?" Austin seethed.

"Someone who knows how to stay quiet."

Austin ignored my jab. "You're not a soldier. You're a cripple."

"Wow. Great observation," I said sarcastically.

"You're an asshole. I think we should leave you here, being a dead-weight and all. I think that's for the best, right?"

"Well, don't think too hard. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"That's enough," Peter said, giving me a warning glare.

Harriet scoffed. "Unbelievable. Can you believe this guy? Hashtag, rude." She turned to Corey, but the man didn't dare meet my gaze or answer her.

"We should leave him," Austin mumbled.

"Careful. He's a bigger fish than both of you," Peter said without looking at them, rifles raised forward, and eyes kept peeling the darkness below. "Watch both your mouths."

"You some senator's son or something?" Austin asked mockingly.

I didn't answer. I wouldn't give this neanderthal the satisfaction. Sometimes, the best response was a silent treatment. I didn't want to give him more ammunition flung my way. At least Corey was sharp enough to follow instructions. He gave me a mortified look, appalled by his two companions' behavior.

"Was that necessary?" Luke whispered in my ear.

"No." I paused, looked back to see if they're in earshot. They weren't. "It was worth it."

The parking garage below the apartment building had two levels. Austin's car was at the lowest, which meant I had to climb down a few more stairs. Austin slid his ID over the scanner, the dot turning green, and the latch clicked open. In the silence, it sounded like a gun had gone off. Peter slowly opened the door with Haskell, ready to shoot any vector from the other side.

"All clear," Peter said. The two soldiers stepped out into the garage first, scanning our flank. I hobbled out with Luke beside me, then the three college kids. "Where's your car?"

"Lot 32," Austin whispered.

"Yeah. But where?"

"On our left. Second to the last row, eight cars down. Close to the ramps."

There were six rows of parked vehicles, four of which (the middle) faced each other. We were between rows five and six.

"What's it look like?" Peter asked Austin.

"Green. Big. It's sandwiched between two puny Hondas. You won't miss it," he said.

Peter led the way while Haskell protected our rear. LED lights illuminated sections of the garage while bathing the rest in darkness. We made sure to skirt the light's periphery, hunkering down to avoid attention. As we moved further away from the stairwell, I could distinctly smell a coppery scent and the foul odor of someone who let their bowels lose—the stench of the dead.

"Vectors," I said to Peter.

Peter didn't have to be told. We encountered the first body forty feet in, a man mangled to the bone that his chest cavity had caved inward. Harriet let out a stifled screech, and the shrieks of the vectors answered.

"Hide!" Peter hissed.

Three shadows descended from the ramps.

Luke and I ran back (I mostly limped faster), and hid behind an SUV. Corey cowered next to us. I didn't know where Peter and the others hide behind. All I saw were the three shadows from a distance, twitching as they sniffed out for prey. All three were male. One had gym clothes on, a muscle tank top with really short shorts that could almost be considered as underwear. The second man merely wore a bloodied white shirt and boxer shorts, perhaps his pajamas. And the third was a soldier. The tank top vector shuffled closer toward us.

"We need to move," I whispered.

"No. Let's go back." Corey pointed to the stairwell door thirty feet away. I looked over, and I realized we ran further back. I couldn't see the others from where we're hiding.

The vector drew closer.

I shook my head. "Too risky."

I tracked the vector's movement. When he reached the rear of the SUV, we crawled to the front of the hood just as the vector turned his head to our direction. He didn't notice us. The other two vectors remained close to the ramps, too far away for me to worry about now. The vector stood there for a moment, jerking its head left to right as if trying to gauge our presence. Could whatever be inside him detect healthy people? I wondered. Could they sense a healthy host? I closed my eyes, held my breath, and wished that wasn't the case.

The vector finally shambled away.

"Bren," Luke whispered. I turned toward him. "You can let go now."

I looked down and realized I was holding his hand tightly. I reeled back, mouthing an apology. Luke curled and uncurled his fist, shaking his head. He then gave me a gentle squeeze on my shoulder.

"Can you see the others?" I asked. Luke shook his head. "Okay. Let's find the car. They could be waiting for us there already."

"What about the crazies?" Corey asked.

I glanced over the hood. The vector still continued shambling away from us. "Just keep an eye out," I said.

We crawled to the adjacent car. "Do you see the car?" I asked.

"Right there." Corey pointed to the only Range Rover in the row, five cars away. It'll be a slow crawl, and I was hoping I'd find the others already there. I still couldn't see them. I thought that was a good thing. If I couldn't see them, then the vectors couldn't see them either.

As I made a beeline for the next car, gunshots rang out across the garage. I immediately face-planted on the ground, my hands over my head as another shot rang out. Then two. Then three. A vector shrieked, followed by glass breaking not far from us. It was either Peter or Haskell, but it was clear a vector had attacked them. All at once, Luke grabbed me by the arm, hauling me to my feet. Corey was gone, and all around me, vectors came out of the darkness, twitching, and screeching. I hadn't realized there were more of them, counted at least six or seven, hidden in the garage's dark corners or from behind the vehicles. I looked around to get my bearings, but Luke was already pushing me toward the Range Rover.

I looked back at the stairwell door. Corey ran toward it, fishing through his pockets for his ID. The tank top vector saw him first, and with a resounding roar, chased after him. Three other vectors bounced out of the shadows in hot pursuit. I was about to scream for Corey to duck so I could shoot at the nearest one behind him, but Corey had already reached the door and scanned his ID. He slipped inside, but not before the muscled tank top vector thrust his arm in, preventing the door from fully closing. The four vectors chased Corey into the stairwell.

"We can't do anything about him now. Move!" Luke exclaimed. We ran toward the car.

Peter and Haskell stood back-to-back on the third row, shooting the vectors charging toward them. There were already four bodies with gunshot wounds to the head. Beyond them, Austin had reached the Range Rover and climbed into the driver seat, quickly turned the ignition. I was expecting him to drive to us instead, but when Harriet reached the vehicle next, scampering toward the passenger side, I realized what was going to happen. When she grabbed hold of the handle, it wouldn't open. Austin had locked the doors.

"Let me in, Austin!" Harriet screamed, pounding against the windows. When Austin didn't move, her stare grew cold. "What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing! Let me in! You fucking asshole!"

Austin took one look at us, to his girlfriend, and looked away. He stepped on the gas and drove toward the ramp.

"Bastard!" Peter yelled.

The two vectors up the ramps earlier—the pajama man and the soldier—bolted toward the car. Austin ran over the pajama man, but he completely missed the soldier. Harriet tried to run back to us, but the soldier was faster. He was on top of her before she could turn around. Two more vectors piled over her as her screams joined the cacophony of gunfire.

"Bren! On your right!" Luke screamed.

I turned around and saw for a split second a vector reaching out for me. I swung my crutches blindly, ended up hooking his arms through the gaps. With his arm stuck in there, I swiftly tugged hard on the crutches, pulling him to the ground.

I stepped on his spine and shot him on the neck.

At my periphery, a woman bolted toward me, and I swung the crutches again like a baseball bat, fracturing her skull before she dropped to the ground. A man in a pink cardigan grabbed hold of Luke's jacket, but he didn't have a good grip on him, and Luke shoved him to the ground. Luke, with his one good shoe left, stomped on the vector's face.

A female vector bounced off the roof of a station wagon, trying to leap toward Luke. I shot her mid-air, hitting her on the shoulder. The force sent her flying backward, breaking her neck against the hood of the same station wagon she jumped from. Her skull made a dent on the hood. Luke ducked, eyes wide, mouth hung open at the dead woman. I realized I could've shot him if I aimed just a couple of inches lower, and Luke knew it.

I pulled Luke behind me. "That's two close calls!"

"I was handling it," he said.

I groaned. "Yeah, right. Just stay close behind me."

Luke didn't have a weapon. Haskell tossed Luke his combat knife, and he and Peter joined me in protecting him since he had no gun. Aim, shoot, kill. A brief minute seemed like it stretched forever, but as the dust and the gunpowder cleared, fourteen dead vectors surrounded us.

Haskell raised his fist in the air. "Fuck yeah! That's how it's done."

"It's not over yet," Peter said. He sauntered over the dead soldier and searched his pouches and armor. He came up empty-handed, although he did take off the soldier's vest and handed it to Luke.

"Wear it," Peter said.

Luke pointed to me. "He needed it more."

"I'm not going to hand over a thirty-pound vest to an injured, limping guy. Wear it. Bren can't support too much weight with his leg all crappy."

"Hey! Give me some credit," I said.

"Vectors don't shoot," Luke said.

"I might," Peter said impatiently. "The other soldiers might. Who knows? Better be cautious than never, lover boy."

Luke glanced at me, pleading. I shook my head. "You can have it. I don't think I'd be able to move much if it's on me."

"Are you sure?"

"You owe me a date. I want you in one piece before that happens."

Luke blinked at me monetarily, then began to laugh. "Ah, fine. Since you ask so nicely," he said, then giving Peter a stinky glare.

"Good boy," Peter said.

"We can't go back through the stairwell door," Haskell said. "Might as well go up one level, see what we find. There's bound to be bike racks around."

"We're biking now?" Luke asked incredulously. "The vectors can easily grab us on those."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"These might not be the only vectors in here." I warned.

"Bren's right. There could still be others trapped in here. Watch out."

Peter checked his ammo. He still had a full magazine left inside his pouch—four more bullets left in his old one. Haskell had used his spare ammo already, and he had eleven left. I was down to three rounds on Betty. I got to make every shot count.

We moved toward the upper level. I didn't dare look at Harriet's body. We knew she was dead the moment her screams turned into a harrowing, ear-splitting tug over her vocal cords, as if the muscles there had been ripped apart, letting out a sound that no human should ever make; a combination of horror, excoriating pain, and helplessness.

If there was one thing I learned from this infection in the past few weeks was that infected people missing half their faces, or had their arms cut off, or their guts hanging out, or other grave injuries did not survive long for more than a day or two. I surmised that the vectors still die from blood loss or from other normal trauma. After all, I saw a horde of them jumped off an overpass in New York. Those who landed on the pavement were instantly killed, but the latter ones used the dead like padding to break their fall.

Harriet wouldn't turn, but as a precaution, Peter used one of his scant bullets to shoot her on the head anyway.

My crutch was already showing its wear and tear. Using it as a bludgeoning weapon, some of its hinges had been wrenched loose, its metal dented. One more whack, and I wouldn't be able to use it anymore. Even as I used it for support, it creaked and groaned from my weight and movement. I was like a dinner bell in the darkness for any potential vectors still hanging about.

As we sauntered near the parking garage's entryway, I heard a car engine's low rumble. When we turned around the corner, the Range Rover was sitting there in the middle of the entryway, the engines still running. The parking garage's gates rolled all the way up. The driver's side door was wide open, and two feet away from it, Austin lay on the ground with four vectors hunched over him. On his hand was his ID. I guessed he was trying to manually open the garage doors via the control panel fixed on the wall before the vectors could get to him. He succeeded in opening the gate, but he wasn't fast enough to get inside his car.

Peter and I shared a look of pity. I puckered my lips, placed the tongue on the roof of my mouth, and let out a sharp whistle.

All four of the vectors' heads jerked up, stopped what they were doing, and turned to look at us.

"Uh, boys. Your show?" I asked, backing away.

"Step back," Peter ordered tightly.

Peter and Haskell dropped on one knee, and one-by-one shot the four vectors bolting toward us. They didn't stand a chance. "Let's get out of here before more of them hears that."

We climbed into the Range Rover, the keys still in the ignition. I saw a glimpse of Austin's torn-up corpse. He was so close to getting out, but I guessed we had him to thank for leaving the vehicle for us to find. I felt a pang of guilt about that, but then again, he did try to abandon us. I thought to myself earlier that I didn't want that happening again, and it still did. Lesson learned yet again. I promised myself that I wouldn't get caught up in this situation ever again.

Peter drove out of the parking garage when a body fell a foot away from the car's hood. Peter stepped on the breaks, and all of us looked up out of the window. Two more bodies fell a second later.

"It's Corey," Haskell sputtered, craning his neck, peering over the body in front of the car.

Corey lay face-first on the pavement, his skull fractured and opened like a crushed grape, spilling guts and brain matter all over the street. His glasses miraculously didn't break from the impact. Next to him, the second body that fell was the muscled tank top vector. The third one was one of the tenants I saw up on the roof.

My eyes widened. I realized that Corey led the vectors to the other survivors hiding up on the roof.

"Let's go," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I didn't want to think of those people up there, turning into one of those things.

Peter glanced at me through the rear-view mirror, face stern, and jaw clenched. He drove around Corey's body, and we continued on our way to the Med district in grim silence.

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