The Killing Floor

“Not smoke. Dust. You were saying?”

“Wow,” Todd says with a grin.

She resists the urge to tousle his hair.

A dust cloud could mean a lot of things. It could mean cattle, but she knows the cattle herds are gone from the area, eaten by survivors and the Infected. It could mean a refugee camp, but if there were one there, she would have heard about it. It could mean a convoy of vehicles, but the dust is too concentrated and localized.

By process of elimination, it is most likely a massive crowd of people.

These are the Infected of Camp Defiance, migrating east. Assuming they are following Ray, then he should be there as well, like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land.

“If I see Erin, I’ll let you know.”

“Promise me you’ll look,” Todd says.

“Promise.”

Marcus cranks the handle, opening the door. Anne touches his shoulder and hops down onto the road, rifle slung over her shoulder and her boots crunching stones.

“You need me to watch your back?” he asks her.

“No thanks, I’m good,” she says. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“You be careful,” he says, and she feels his desire.

“I will,” she says, holding his gaze.

“We’ll be here,” Jean calls from back of the bus. “Like sitting ducks.”

Marcus grins, shaking his head. Anne rolls her eyes at him before turning and marching into the woods. The sooner I dump you in someone else’s lap, Jean Byrd, the better. Maybe they’ll understand how bad you had it during the epidemic.

For now, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

She disappears into the trees, still tingling from the way Marcus looked at her, excited and afraid at the idea of his feelings coming out into the open. Stay focused. The gloomy forest envelops her, thrusting her into a darker, far more dangerous world.

Shrugging her rifle into her hands, she jogs through the foliage. The air smells like moist earth and greenery. The air is cooler here under the shade of the forest canopy, but more humid, covering her in a slick sheen of sweat. Her cap feels wet against her forehead. After fifty yards, she crouches, sweeping the foliage with the barrel of her rifle.

She hears a nasal grunt. Something else responds with a series of glottal clicks. Anne knows of just one thing that uses this form of speech. Hoppers.

She finds the little band hunched in a circle around the carcass of a dead deer, tearing off pieces of meat and chewing, their little cheeks bulged with meat. The monsters look like the product of a bizarre genetic experiment— hairless, barrel chested, albino baboons with legs shaped like a cricket’s. They wobble when they walk, as if struggling, little arms outstretched for balance. When they sight their prey, they are capable of multiple jumps high into the air. Their wide mouths are lined with rows of jagged teeth.

Once they land on their victim, they bite and wrap their legs to prevent him from tossing them away. They then stab him with the erect stinger between their legs. This stinger injects a parasite that grows to become another hopper.

Anne hates the hoppers nearly as much as she does the Demon, the fiercest monster of all. She hates these particular creatures because they are parasites. Bottom feeders. Cockroaches.

As much as she would love to gun them down, she cannot afford to draw any attention to herself. If she shoots, more might show up, not to mention a hundred thousand Infected she believes are marching across the valley just past the next rise.

She goes around the hoppers, staying as close to the ground as she can.

Anne has bigger fish to fry today.

¦

Ahead, sunlight glares through the trees. Soaked with sweat after her journey, Anne slows as she approaches the edge of the forest, pausing every few paces to study her surroundings. The last thing she needs is to leave the woods and run into a pack of Infected.

She emerges at the top of a treed hill overlooking a farmhouse and surrounding cornfields swarming with Infected moaning in the sunlight. The horde seems endless, trampling the fields into ruin, large enough to raise a dust cloud seen from miles away.

So this is where you went.

The sight is breathtaking. So many people. So many lives destroyed just so that a mindless organism could survive a little longer. Sarge would have described the scene as a target rich environment, but she is not here to kill Infected.

Anne is looking for Ray Young, the man who caused all this.

She takes a drink of water from her canteen, breathes deeply, and gets to work. Peering into the eyepiece of the telescopic scope mounted on her rifle, she studies the crowd.

This might take a very long time. Might as well conserve energy.

She detaches the scope from her rifle and puts her back against a large tree, scanning the shifting crowds while she eats a granola bar.

Erin?

The girl drifts among the Infected with her arms at her sides, wearing a lost expression.

At least Todd will get some closure.

A flicker of movement far behind her catches Anne’s eye. A group of Infected swarm over each other, covered in blood, eating one of their own.

Something is moving on their left. She shifts her scope.

Ray Young jogs away from the Infected, looking terrified.

A smile flickers across Anne’s lips.

Got you, you son of a bitch.

She pockets her unfinished snack and reattaches the telescopic sight. Ray stops at the farmhouse and sits on the steps.

He believes he is still human. The tragedy is he is another product of Infection, perhaps the worst of all—a lie, a creature of deception, a Trojan Horse.

An abomination that must be killed.

Time for the killing.

The first step: find a good firing position.

Anne studies the ground, looking for a prone firing position offering support as well as concealment. Making herself as still as possible is necessary for an accurate shot, but is also exhausting. As muscles tire, they move, producing wobble in the crosshairs.

She cannot find a prone firing position on the hill with a decent line of sight. Not even a kneeling position. Anne will have to take her shot at Ray while standing.

Placing her palm against the rough bark of a tree, she extends her thumb to form a V and rests the butt of the rifle there, placing the stock against the pocket of her right shoulder.

Stay right there, Ray.

She flicks the safety to the FIRE position, pulls the bolt back to release the catch, and chambers the first round from the magazine. Locked and loaced.

Ray stands and paces, then stops. Anne rests her cheek against the worn surface of the walnut rifle stock and aligns her eye with the scope. The blurry image comes into sharp focus as she adjusts the magnification. As the reticle clears, she centers the crosshairs on Ray’s chest, making an adjustment to the ballistic cam to compensate for her higher elevation.

This done, she closes her eyes and relaxes. When she opens them, the crosshairs have dropped to her natural point of aim, a little left and below the target. If she were to correct and shoot now, her muscles would tense, which could throw off her aim. Anne adjusts her firing stance and repeats the exercise. When she opens her eyes, Ray is still in the crosshairs. Now she can shoot without any tension. The man looks as scared and confused as he did earlier. Rather than evoking any sympathy, this makes her hate him even more.