Virulence Immune

~ Chapter Twenty-Three ~

The soldiers started to retreat toward the entry to the bus.

Sgt. Bradman pushed for Holloway to climb aboard first. "Get inside!" He shouted. "Only you can save us. You have to survive."

"Not without her." Holloway demanded. "I need her alive."

"Get Doctor Holloway on the damn bus!" Sgt. Bradman ordered his men.

The nearest soldiers forced Holloway up into the bus, ignoring his pleas and his need to constantly check over his shoulder to see if they were going to push Perri in after him.

"Now the woman!" The sergeant called and pointed.

Perri tried to get through the tightly clustered group of men wearing olive-green, camouflaged, uniforms. Not toward the bus, but to make her way over to Jack.

She reached to grab the back of his jacket, but a hand clamped around her wrist.

Suddenly she was being pulled away from Jack and shoved toward the bus. She wanted to call out his name. To tell him to come with her.

The words never made it past her lips.

As they neared the doorway the soldier helping her stepped aside to let her pass and, in the blink of an eye, he was yanked out of her grasp.

But, in his panic, he clung onto her gray hoodie—dragging her along with him.

The other soldiers scrambled to reclaim her... but failed.

Perri shut her eyes as her body was slammed into the ground and a great weight pressed down on her, pinning her.

Something was crushing her chest making it hard to breath.

She tried to stifle her gasping.

Hands and knees were grazing random areas of her body as a warm liquid seeped through her clothes and kissed her skin.

She could barely hear the last remnants of the gun fire over the sound of the dead noisily consuming flesh.

Perri slowly peeked through semi-shut eyelids, but they shot open when she found the dead eyes of the helpful soldier gaping blankly back at her.

Infected seemed to surround around her on all sides, feasting on the soldier's back. She wondered if they even knew she was beneath him.

She sharply sucked in a breath and held it when an infected looked down at her, its gaze met her own.

Then... nothing.

It simply turned its attention back to the dead soldier.

For a moment, Perri just laid there, staring out at nothing in particular.

When she regained her thoughts, she shimmed out from beneath the crimson cadaver until she was completely free from being crushed by the feeding infected.

She scooted away until her back was against a vehicle and she let out a shaky, nervous, laugh.

The dead had seen her.

They couldn't have missed her.

Yet, they did nothing.

Perri willed her trembling limbs to move and she rose to her feet.

She even dared to take several steps through the crowd of infected and stopped in the middle.

Her heart raced. She couldn't believe her eyes.

The army of infected just ignored her. They moved around her like a river around a rock.

As if she were invisible to them.

She let another breathy laugh leave her lips and couldn't contain the smile that followed.

A scream snapped her attention back to the bus.

The infected were trying to get in through the windows.

Perri reached for her knapsack.

Her heart sank.

It was gone.

Her wide eyes darted around the area until they stopped on something.

Not her bag, but it was the very thing she needed.

Perri moved with the flow of infected until she was beside the dead soldier.

She squatted down next to his body to retrieve the object from beneath his arm—or what was left of his arm.

Metal scraped along the ground and the sound rang in the air when she pulled her tomahawk free.

She gripped the handle with purpose and stood up.

Perri wondered if the infected would notice her when she started to hack into them.

With that, a side-smile hardened her soft features and she sprang into action.