Action Adventure / Up From the Depths Part 19

“I’m going to find Dunmire. Keep everyone together. Go.” The hummer accelerated a little, the people hanging onto the sides to get the idea of how fast they needed to jog. Hathaway watched the dim red lights get smaller before he turned to look back at the alley. He could make out more shadows now on the street. Shit. He jogged at an angle across the street to the side that Dunmire had been on, carefully staying on the street but close to the curb, using the curb and sidewalk as a makeshift guide. Hathaway kept his eyes moving, nor focusing directly on any object because the black of the pupil would block it out. Using his peripheral vision, he tried to find some sign that Dunmire and several others were just lost or hiding somewhere. The smell of decay wasn’t as strong the further he got from the alley. Up ahead, he saw something light color laying in the gutter by the sidewalk. Stopping, squatting down and using his penlight, it revealed a k-pot. He picked it up, the chinstrap wasn’t buckled, Hathaway turned it around to read the name printed on the OD helmet band. It was Dunmire’s. Maybe it fell off when he was running. A distantly familiar smell came to him from his youth. It smelled like the rendering house he worked at during high school. Shaking his head trying to figure out what would make that smell now, he heard a wet liquid sound to his right causing him to spin, the weak beam probing the darkness of a playground. The cone of light revealed a zombie scooping into the body cavity of a prone figure wearing desert BDU’s, pulling out some unrecognizable internal organ, taking a bite out of it as blood ran down its chin. Hathaway recoiled back; his beam illuminating more bodies being feasted on, the missing civilians from Dunmire’s section. Falling backwards, waving his arms to regain balance, the little penlight flying from his fingers, rolling away from him.

“Fuck me.” he frantically scrambled to his feet, fired a short burst in the general direction of the eating zombies before turning and running as fast as he could towards the distant taillights of the hummer. Up ahead he could see sections of the city still had electricity, the hummer just a few blocks from the lighted area. Behind him the moaning came from several directions. As he drew closer to the hummer he noticed the vehicle was stopped, the driver’s door hanging open, engine idling.

“Valdez! Axtell!” he yelled out as he drew closer.

“Up here Sergeant.” Hathaway looked up to see Axtell sit up; he had been lying flat, talking to the people inside.

“You find Dunmire?” Axtell asked from his position.

He came around the side of the hummer and looked in. Several civilians were sitting inside, terrified expressions on their faces. Ms Redman sitting in the passengers seat acting as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Axtell leaned over and looked down at him.

“Sergeant, you find him?” Axtell asked again somewhat nervously.

“Yeah, I found him. Where’s Valdez?”

“He saw Captain Steele’s vehicle down that way.” Axtell pointed to a side street. “Went down there with some of the high school kids to check it out.”

“Damnit! Keep an eye out!” Hathaway pointed back in the direction he had come from then looked down the sidestreet, at the far end where Axtell had indicated. There was still power to the buildings about a block past Steele’s hummer. Those buildings projected a weak light, just enough to make out shapes moving around. He jogged towards them. The closer he got, the more he was able to make out. He saw Valdez, standing in front of the second door on the driver’s side, pulling items out of the vehicle to add to a small stack already on the street.

“Valdez! What the fuck?” Valdez poked his head back out of the inside.

“Re-supplying Master Sergeant. Captain ain’t gonna need it no more.” he commented as he brought out gear, ammo and weapons, separating them by content into piles.

“You find Captain Steele?”

“Found what was left of him.” Valdez nonchalantly pointed to a pair of ACU pants, boots still neatly bloused into them, on the sidewalk. The upper body was nowhere to be seen, just a trail of blood and gore leading off into the shadows. Hathaway looked away, bile rushing to his mouth.

“Fuck me running.”

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Reviews

March 01, 2009

FrakKevin

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
1489	73.9% (575 votes)	33.0%

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20	M	Charleston, SC	November 21

FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

I just noticed you were on part 19..so even do you gave a great recap..I missed a lot of relationship building between the team. Getting straight to the point as I mentioned before this is a good action story with a logical end approaching. You squeeze a lot of cliff hangers into 3 short pages…I interested to see if Dunmire and his crew of students will be successful.