Craig DiLouie - The Infection

They stand quietly for several moments, unable to speak or move, utterly drained. Just breathing. A pall of gun smoke hangs in the air. The cordite bites their nostrils, competing with the bitter smell of blood and the rank stink of the dead Infected.

“You kick ass,” he says finally.

“It’s the training.”

“That was way too close.”

“We’re going to be okay.”

“You’ll have to teach me your judo skills sometime.”

“Wait,” the cop says. “Do you hear that?”

The Kid shakes his head, trying to get rid of the ringing in his ears.

“I can’t hear anything,” he says.

Ethan, Anne and Paul rush into the corridor, breathing hard.

“We heard the shooting and came as fast as we could,” Anne says.

“Sounded like a war up here,” Paul says. “You okay, boy?”

“We’re okay,” the Kid tells him.

“Quiet,” the cop says. “Something is coming.”

The survivors train their light and weapons on the doors at the far end of the corridor. A strange sound comes to them that slowly reveals itself as something familiar. Chewing. The sound of an animal chewing a piece of meat, oddly amplified.

“What the hell is that?” the Kid says, wincing.

A fresh wave of sour milk stench assaults their nostrils with an almost physical force.

“God, that smell makes me want to puke,” the cop says.

“Don’t even say that word or I’ll actually do it,” Ethan says, pale.

“Wait,” Anne tells them. “Quiet.”

A baby is crying.

Ethan takes two steps forward before Anne reaches out and grips his arm, holding him back.

“It’s a baby,” he says, his eyes wild. “A little baby. Oh, God.”

Paul grunts in surprise, holding his dying flare. A baby in the hospital, alone in the dark. A miracle baby. How did it survive? What has it been eating? Is it Infected?

“That’s not a child,” Anne says.

The creature pushes the doors open and slithers through. The survivors flinch and take a step back with exclamations of horror and revulsion. It is a giant worm, half as thick as a car and twice as long, with an enormous blank face made up of wrinkled folds of skin. The creature appears to be blind, propelling itself towards them using tiny appendages, something like a cross between giant warts and tentacles, that cover its body. It looks sick, its body pale and grayish and covered in purple bruises, trembling as it slithers, starving.

Ethan sobs in horror, unable to comprehend the existence of such a repulsive thing. His concept of reality is disintegrating. It is as if the map of the world were now blemished with big blank spaces marked with the thickly scrawled warning: here be monsters.

The worm plows into the dead, pushing the corpses against the sides of the corridor.

“Can it see us?” Wendy says.

The monster shivers at the sound of her voice, pausing in front of one of the bodies and nuzzling its hair. The massive blank face cracks open, revealing a gaping black maw ringed with sharklike teeth. It promptly begins to absorb the corpse headfirst with a slurping sound.

“Oh, God!”

The creature shudders, then resumes its feast, cracking bones. Chewing.

“I’d like to leave now,” Ethan says, shaking.

“What do we do?” says the Kid. “Anne? What are we going to do?’

The creature shivers again, mewing like a baby wanting milk.

Anne shoulders her rifle and says, “Kill this fucking abomination.”

Gunfire instantly fills the corridor as the survivors vent their fear and revulsion, screaming bloody murder and draining their magazines. The worm abandons its grisly meal and lurches forward, its movements jerky in the strobing light of the muzzle flashes. The bullets sink into the mottled flesh of its face with no apparent effect.

Ethan lowers his smoking carbine, feeling helpless. How can it be killed? Does it even have a heart or a brain? Even if it were just a giant worm without a brain or heart, the amount of ordinance they are throwing at it should be tearing it to shreds, and yet here it comes. The creature appears to have some type of bony plate on its face that is thick enough to absorb their firepower. He sees it differently now, not as an aberration but as a form of life perfectly designed for tunnels. That would mean it is vulnerable on its sides but not its front.

What about its other end?

Something whirs in his brain and clicks.

He roars at the survivors, “ GET BACK! ”

The creature’s rear end leaps into the air, revealing itself as a second head with another hissing mouth ringed by giant sharp teeth, and lunges forward with surprising speed and force, leapfrogging its front and landing among the screaming survivors, scattering them. Wendy pauses at the top of the stairs, squeezing off a few more shots with her Glock before following the other survivors down.

“Keep going,” she calls. “It’s right behind us!”

They exit the stairs and enter the emergency room. Anne points to the Bradley parked outside in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the barrel of its 25-mm automatic turret-mounted gun aimed directly at them. Slanted rain pelts the armor. Sarge sits in the open hatch, waving at them frantically.

“Out of the way!” Anne screams.

“Everybody get down!”

The cannon fires, shrouding the vehicle in smoke. The windows burst and the inside of the emergency room dissolves in a series of flashing explosions and enormous clouds of smoke and dust. The survivors are on the ground, their faces buried in their arms and eating ash. The vehicle trembles as the gun fires again: BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP, vomiting empty shell casings down its metal chest onto the ground. And again. And again.

The firing finally stops. The dust and ash swirl in black clouds.

The survivors are screaming.

Sarge climbs out of the Bradley gripping his AK47 rifle, leaps down onto the ground, and races into the hospital, shouting names. The impossible creature he saw is now a quivering, smoking ruin smeared across the floor. He hopes he has not killed the other survivors in the bargain. The Bradley’s cannon is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel, and it is best to be nowhere near where its rounds are falling and exploding if you want to live. He had no choice; he heard all the shooting upstairs and revved up the Bradley and brought it back in case the others needed to make a quick exit. He calls the others’ names again and is relieved to hear voices shouting behind reception. He finds the others, covered in black ash, ringed around the Kid, who sits on his knees, holding a bleeding wound on his arm. The cop is screaming and pushing her Glock against his head while he pleads for his life and the others shout at her and each other, waving their weapons.

“It’s dead,” he says, wiping rain from his face. “The thing is dead.”

“We’ve got a bigger problem right now, Sarge,” Anne says.

“My point is we’re okay now. So let’s just be cool and lower all these guns.”

“He got cut by the thing’s teeth,” Anne says. “Wendy is right. He could turn.”

“I’m not doing anything unless that happens,” the cop says.

“How long is incubation?”

“Somebody his age and size… Three minutes, tops.”

“Who has a watch?”

Ethan spits on the face of his watch and rubs it with his thumb.

“Counting down,” he says.

“I’m just trying to protect us!” Wendy says, panicking.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Anne tells her. “You’re doing fine, Wendy.”

“I don’t want to do this,” she says, tears streaming down her face.

“We know. The Kid knows it, too.”