Once they were down to only a few containers, Marcus moved on to oversee the next metal hut. Nick handed the last of the looted supplies off. When the carrier of the items stepped through the door, a crack of gunfire exploded through the air. The sound reverberated off the metal buildings, causing the volume to grow until dying off into wary silence. The man carrying the last of the supplies fell to the pavement in the doorway.
Nick picked up the rifle from his chest and pushed Kate into the corner of the room. With the door hanging open, Kate was secured between it and the wall. Nick knelt in front of her, aware of the open door, and faced the entryway on the opposite side of the building. He listened.
The subtle scratching of footsteps on concrete pricked at Nick’s ears; possibly belonging to the people from the fort. The steps drew closer. Nick silently pleaded that the shooter would come to inspect this building. All Nick needed was for the enemy to walk in. Nick was ready.
Yet, the footsteps stopped. Somewhere near the middle structure. Nick could wait, but more people may die. He stood, pivoted around the door, and thrust the barrel of the gun toward the last place he heard the footsteps. An unfamiliar figure tossed something into the supply building just as Nick took the shot.
The bullet propelled into the enemy’s torso, center mass. Despite the injury, the shooter pushed the door closed, then slumped against it, holding his chest. A pistol rested in the man’s hand, and Nick thought it strange that there was no urge to aim it at him.
“Toss the gun.” Nick trained his rifle on the shooter as he cautiously approached.
Beyond the enemy, Marcus opened the door to the third structure and peered around the corner behind the barrel of a gun.
The shooter slid the pistol across the pavement, the metal grating against the ground. A slimy grin spread across his face. Nick’s eyes widened. The man had thrown something into the building. What had he thrown?
Nick swiped the handgun from the ground and back-peddled.
“Get down! Run!” Nick yelled as he propelled himself away from the building as quickly as possible. The middle building erupted, and a blast broke through the atmosphere. Pieces of metal shrapnel zipped by Nick as he was thrown to the ground. Though the explosion lasted only a second, the world operated in slow motion. Nick’s ears rang—the sounds of his surroundings were muted.
The metal building lay in ruin; smoke billowed from holes in the structure. Blood and limbs littered the area surrounding the grenade’s area of impact. One of the men from the third building ran into the carnage, ripping his pack open and attending to the wounded.
Kate.
Nick pushed himself off the ground and ran into the building where he had left Kate. She was still huddled in the corner; she was shaking. Nick reached his arms out to her, tried to form words, but the steady hum in his ears dizzied his mind.
Kate gasped. Nick squinted in confusion as her eyes were fixed on his shoulder. When he looked down, Nick realized why. A sliver of metal the size of a butcher knife stuck out from his collar bone. He had not even felt it.
“There’s no time. Are you hurt?” Nick found his voice, and it sounded like it belonged to someone else. It was shaky and uncertain.
“I’m fine,” Kate answered.
“You’ve got your revolver?” Nick asked.
Kate pulled the silver handgun from her waistband, slid open the cylinder to reveal six bullets, and swung it closed.
“Keep your heads down! Get the supplies to the vehicles!” Marcus’s voice traveled from the third metal building.
“Stay here. Don’t make a sound until I come back.”
Nick took his rifle in his hands and exited the building. Nerves pricked at the back of his neck, reminding him to stay vigilant. Voices swirled around, and bodies rushed to collect the looted items. Marcus trained his rifle on the hangars centered in the middle of the airfield. His eye was pressed against the scope, searching every opening.
Staying against the fence line, Nick and Marcus walked on tactical feet, clutching their firearms. They stayed low to the ground as they crossed the asphalt toward the first of thehangars. The mouth of the building stood wide open, with a small aircraft sitting askew inside.
Marcus and Nick sifted through the building, checking behind tool carts and supply crates. In one corner, a sleeping bag was laid out across the concrete. A lantern and a book sat beside it. Nick’s back hurt just looking over the sleeping arrangement.
This hangar was empty, and it was on to the next.
The two men waited on the inside of the hangar’s metal wall, one on either side of the opening. Peering out, they scanned the area for Infected while hoping to draw out gunfire. Voices from the group behind them carried across the pavement, but nothing met them from ahead. Nick sent a glance toward the metal building he had left Kate in, reminding himself that she was capable of fending off an enemy. It did little to quell his worries.
Marcus and Nick moved forward, each trained on their own side of the airfield. There was no time to construct a strategy beforehand. The men moved fluidly together as former agents of war.
The next, and final, hangar was much larger, housing both a helicopter and a jet. The expanse of the structure was not the most glaring detail. It was the smell. The men exchanged a concerned glance as an acrid odor penetrated their nostrils, before taking separate routes to clear the building. When they met in the middle behind the aircraft, the stench grew stronger, and their suspicions were confirmed.
Bodies. A stack of bodies had been piled behind large wooden crates. Mostly adult men but a few smaller corpses could be identified. All appeared to have succumbed to gunshot wounds and lay in various stages of decay.
From the backside of the hangar, empty pavement sprawled across for about a half mile until meeting the edges of the fence. The one-person sleeping bag told the story of a man striving to hoard valuable military-grade items that he would never need.
Chapter 20
