He secured the hatch. There were several slot visors around the vehicle. Anton scurried over to one and poked a machine gun into the opening.
As soon as the soldier came into view, Anton laid into the trigger. As soon as he finished off that soldier, he shifted his attention to the few others he saw through the slot visor and opened fire.
“We through.” Kozlovovich’s voice rumbled over the rattle of the machine gun fire. “We through the fence.”
Anton scrambled back up the hatch and threw it open. When he popped out, he had a perfect view of the bloodbath he and Kozlovovich had left behind them. Broken bodies soaked the street with gore. The violence soothed a deep part of him.
He wanted more. Anton stayed where he was, alert and watchful. He shot anything that moved. A few mutants fell to his gun. He even managed to get a few more Soviets. Watching them die was like applying ice to a wound. He craved more of it.
But the further they got from downtown, the more apparent it became that there was no one left to kill. Rossi was a dead city. There was no one here.
“Directions,” Kozlovovich called up to him. “Where I go?”
“Freeway onramp, dead ahead. Head west.” Anton stayed where he was. If there was even a remote chance to killing another Soviet, he wasn’t going to risk losing out.
They rolled out of town. The tank nudged aside any cars that blocked their path, mowing them aside like they were nothing more than matchsticks.
Anton decided he liked having a tank. It might not be as fast as a car, but it was practically indestructible.
“We took out a supply truck outside of Bastopol,” Anton said. “We need to stop and load up on food.”
“Is a good idea,” Koz called back.
As he was carried away from the town of Rossi, Anton felt the weight of his wounds rush back to him. He hurt all over. He was exhausted. Hell, only sheer will power kept him from collapsing into the tank and falling asleep for the next thousand years.
He glanced down at the dried blood that crackled across his skin. The star and sickle made dark, lumpy scabs. The puckered red skin around the wound stood out like an infection. That fucker hadn’t even been able to draw a straight line. It looked like Anton had been carved on by a Kindergartener.
Remembered pain spidered through his chest. It was like the knife was still in him. Cold sweat broke out along his back as the stench of cigarette smoke hit him, even though the air around him was clear and cool.
It was a beautiful morning in West County, California. He was free, but Anton still felt the cold floor of the prison cell. He still smelled the stench of dried urine. The taste of fear was sour in his mouth.
His heart raced. He could hardly breathe. Dropping into the tank, he crouched on the floor, struggling to get himself under control.
He couldn’t afford to freak the fuck out. Not know. Not ever.
Even if he did feel like he was coming apart at the seams.
He owed it to Tate. He owed it to the entire Craig family. He had to hold his shit together, if only so he could avenge their deaths. He had to be tougher than death itself.
Anton made a silent promise to himself: he wouldn’t stop until every last invader was driven from American soil. He would fight until his home was free, or he was dead.
His heart rate slowed to normal. He realized his ribcage hurt like a motherfucker. Did he have cracked ribs? Possibly. The cigarette burns across his jaw, neck, chest, and torso itched. The skin was tender and blistered around the wounds.
He was so fucking tired.
Kozlovovich watched Anton in knowing silence from the tank’s driver’s seat. “They kill my wife,” he said when Anton met his gaze. “They kill my son. They are scum.”
Anton digested this. He could tell by the look in the other man’s eyes that he wasn’t bullshitting him. Maybe he and Kozlovovich weren’t so different.
“Can I call you Koz?” he asked the massive Russian. Even Leo would look small next to this guy.
“Yes. Koz is good. What I call you?”
“I’m Anton.”
“Sniper Anton. Nice to meet you.” He pointed back in the direction of Rossi. “The new infected. They are sentient.”
“Sentient. Yeah. I noticed. The vaccine turned them?”
“Yes. I warn them. No one listen.”
“Why did you try to warn them if they killed your family?”
Koz’s eyes hardened. “They kill my family when I try to warn them.”
Oh. It was too much for Anton to process. He changed the subject. “Where did you learn English?”
Koz shifted in his chair. “I am from a merchant family. My father got me good education. I very smart. I always had top grades. I was conscripted as a teenage boy to assist in virus research. There was a … prison at the lab where I worked. That’s where I train with guns.”
Anton grimaced, reading between the lines. Koz was admitting to working at a place that tested on human subjects.
"I stole bread for prisoners who spoke English. They teach me English. It’s good, no?”
“It’s good.” Anton did his best to banish thoughts of human test subjects in a lab that developed a zombie virus. That had to have been a hellhole much worse than the one from which he’d escaped.
“My friend gave up the location of the Sniper base,” Anton said. “Do you think my people are in danger?”
“Assume the worst,” Koz replied. “That is always best plan.”
Fuck. The man was right. Just because one half of the Soviets was busy eating the other half didn’t mean the Snipers were safe. That was the best case scenario, but only an idiot banked on a best case scenario.
He and Tate and learned that the
