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I flashed a smile at her. “If his brothers are anything like him and you’re lucky enough to attract the attention of one of them, you’ll enjoy yourself too. Now, stay put until we give the all clear.”
She nodded and watched me get out.
The rest of the team was already gathering with the soldiers and dividing into groups to clear the base. I went to check on Molev, who was drinking some water.
“How’s the glue holding up?” I asked.
“Well,” he said.
“Good. I’ll go get—”
He whipped his head to the left and disappeared, leaving me alone by the vehicles.
“Incoming,” I shouted.
The groups with weapons quickly returned to the vehicles. I scrambled toward Roni’s. Back-to-back with the fueler to my left, we scanned the area for movement and listened.
The first infected appeared around the side of a building to our right.
“Got it,” Roni said, aiming.
The sound of her shot already drowned out a scrape of gravel from my left. I looked toward the fueler at the same time something closed around my ankle.
I aimed at the infected’s head. It pulled hard. My bullet pinged against the fueler as I fell. Not that I focused on saving myself from that. The gravel bit into my back and knocked the wind out of me. My head bounced. All I could think of was kicking the infected off of me. The flat of my boot connected with its head again and again.
My ears rang. The high-pitched hum almost drowned out Roni’s garbled, under-water-sounding yell. It didn’t dampen the roar, however.
Molev appeared on the tanker above us, a savage grey creature with a rage-twisted expression as he dove for the infected biting my leg.
He separated its body from its head then scooped me up and deposited me on top of the tanker. A second later, Roni joined me.
“Stay here,” he ordered then left.
Roni kept her weapon up, her gaze scanning the area around us.
“Pull up your pant leg, and tell me if there’s a bite,” she said without looking at me.
My hands were steady as I checked. “Skin discoloration with teeth indents. There’s blood, but the material isn’t ripped. I think it’s an abrasion from trying to get free. No idea if that counts as a bite or not. Make some space. If I start throwing up, try not to shoot the tanker. I already did that.”
She glanced at me but didn’t otherwise move as I noted the time on my watch.
“No one’s that detached,” she said.
“I’ll start panicking if I throw up.” I tugged the pant leg down again. “I really hope this means we’ll find food and fuel here.”
It took another five minutes for Molev to hunt down the rest of the infected who’d tried to ambush us.
He’d just landed on the tanker between Roni and me when someone called out for him.
“We have a problem,” the person added.
Molev glanced at Roni then picked me up.
“Were you bitten?” he asked softly.
“Yes, but it’s hard to tell if it’s an actual bite or if it's from the pressure. My pants didn’t rip. Not sure if that makes a difference.” I glanced at my watch. “We’ll know one way or another in a few minutes.”
His hold on me tightened, and he jumped down. Farther down the line, I saw Roland and Steve standing side by side with their weapons trained on someone sitting against a tire.
