Arisen : Genesis by Michael Stephen Fuchs Page B

all stopped in their tracks. Zack looked behind him, then went forward alone to check it out. The noise was coming from behind a door to the right. Some kind of scrabbling, wet sound. Fuck it , Zack thought, and drew his handgun with his left hand, put his right on the door handle.
    A centimeter at a time, he turned the handle. It moved silently, but then clicked at the end of its range of movement. The noise behind the door stopped. Zack froze dead. He looked behind him again at the others. Their eyes shone at him in the dim light. He shook his head to clear it.
    I really am going to buy it in this fucking place , he thought . There was no escape. Well, might as well get on with it…
    He pressed the door open, eying the space behind it, gun held down by thigh. When there was enough room for his head, he slid it inside, and peered around the edge of the door. And the others saw him suddenly convulse, and begin to double over. He stumbled back, pulling the door shut. His head jerked forward twice, then he clawed at his mask, turned away, and expelled the contents of his stomach with a series of coughing noises.
    Baxter ran to his side and put his arm on Zack’s shoulder. Zack pointed behind him, still half bent over. “Watch the door.” Baxter moved to comply. Zack wiped his mouth on his sleeve, straightened up, and said two words to the others.
    “We’re leaving.”
    There was nothing but death here. He knew it.
    From deeper inside the hospital came some kind of growling sound. It seemed to be human, or rather coming from at least a few humans… but totally inhuman at the same time. They turned and Zack led the retreat. But he didn’t let himself get far ahead of the others.
    He was so scared, he worried he might drop his gun. The outside light through the glass front doors shone like a beacon. It seemed to recede as they fast-walked toward it.
    It was the longest 100 meters of Zack’s life.

The Tipping Point
    “Hey, if we lived here, we’d be home now!” Bob shouted jovially, hoisting himself out the passenger window and taking aim at two running figures carrying AKs a block and a half ahead.
    Dugan was no longer driving cautiously, and the gunmen were coming up fast. They’d already taken a couple of potshots at the Tahoe, which was all Bob needed to know. He started firing – quick, evenly spaced, mechanical shots, expertly placed, and rolling with the motion of the vehicle. Both of the AK guys sprawled out in the middle of an intersection.
    As the Tahoe flashed by, Zack thought he could see other figures, coming from the cross street, descend on the shot guys. One of them was still alive, and shrieked as an attacker fell on him. Then they were past it. Zack swallowed a huge bolus of something, fear probably, in his throat. Gotta keep my cool here… gotta be cool. Even if he was sure he was going to buy it, he still had a job to do. And he had a sacred responsibility to the men he served with.
    Whatever calm had descended when they went out, it had proven temporary. The gunfire was back with a vengeance, there was much more smoke in the air – and they could all now clearly see the fucked-up people, in ones, twos, and crowds, stumbling from place to place. They seemed to give chase to the Tahoe as it roared by.
    Maybe they need help , Zack thought. But they’re sure as hell not getting it from us…
    He was in absolutely no mood for charity at this point.
    He looked across at Baxter, as a stray round cracked into the bulletproof glass, causing them both to reflexively duck. They both fell to the side and into each other, as Dugan swerved around something, or someone, in the middle of the road. And right then, for no reason he could work out, it suddenly seemed very important to Zack that he keep Baxter from dying today. The rest of them were grizzled sons of bitches, all of whom had known what they were getting into.
    But Baxter was like some kid on a school trip gone wro—
    As the Tahoe peeled around a