Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 49

We were not going to make it on foot.

I sprinted left and saw the humvee thirty feet ahead. I shouted for the others to run for the vehicle just as the entrance doors burst open behind us, spilling the vectors out into the sunlight, haggard and ravaged. I quickened my pace and reached the passenger's side door first.

It was locked.

"Shit!" I exclaimed.

I could break the windows. It was protected by two feet of high steel plates and bulletproof glass. Even if I used my shotgun, I would leave a gaping hole for the vectors to come through. It would be a deathtrap. The back windows of the humvee were not like the civilian counterpart. Instead of sliding down, it slid to the side at about four or five inches, but no grown adult could fit their entire body.

I noticed that the turret hatch from the roof was opened. Though, there was no machine gun propped up there.

"Climb!" I said.

I was the first one on the roof, followed by Alfie. He didn't hesitate to crawl down the hole while I gave cover. Armas had a little trouble getting up to the roof, so I lent him a hand and lifted him. The vectors ran down the stairs, sprinting across the parking lot, and there were many of them. I shoved Armas into the hole before I jumped in, closing the hatch above me.

A woman reached the passenger side window, slamming her head onto the glass. It didn't break, but her skull surely did. Blood splattered onto the windowpane, and she made a gurgled squeak before she crumpled onto the ground. At least we had one less vector to worry about, but there were others following behind her. Soon, they swarmed the vehicle, trampling all over her body. Two managed to jump onto the roof, going for the hatch, but I already locked it from the inside.

They had no way of getting in, the vehicle acting like a panic room in a sea of monsters.

My heart was pounding as I slid behind the wheel. Armas sat next to me on the passenger seat. Alfie took the bench seat to the side, hugging his knees and covering his ears; He was not used to the vectors' screams yet.

"You have infected people here?" I sneered at Armas. "And you let it spread? You should have burned that fucking building to the ground instead of playing babysitter." A horrifying thought came to me. "You were staying and sleeping there with the infected right next to you? Are you crazy?"

"I...well..we was supposed to. Orders. Fuck. But—"

Armas fell quiet, a shocked stare at a particular older woman with black hair and sunken eyes hissing at me from the truck's hood. That must be his mother, I guessed. The soldier slowly sank into his seat as if the woman was smothering him.

"We? Who's we?" I asked.

"My unit."

"How many infected are there?"

"Seventy-six."

I groaned. We couldn't kill seventy-six vectors with our weapons and ammo. We had barely half of that number in terms of our bullets.

"You said a unit. Where are they now? Can you call them? Maybe they can help us?" I said. I did hope there were because it would make my job so easy.

Armas shook his head, and I frowned. He pointed to the infected soldiers outside, shrieking and seeing blood. "They're already here."

I wanted to scream. I saw one soldier had half his face torn off, another with nothing but his underwear and a shredded camouflage jacket. Other soldiers with bandages wrapped around their arms, legs, or around their forehead, which I determined must be where they had been bitten or injured.