Orion Colony Complete Series Boxed Set J.N. Chaney (books for new readers .txt) 📖

nightmare. Burning bodies ran this way and that up and down the beach. Those unable to walk or run crawled toward me. The strangest thing was there were no cries of pain, only of anger and the need for revenge.

Burning bodies ran at me with a single purpose: to kill.

If I looked to my left and down the beach, I knew the others would be heading for the jungle interior. I refused myself the act of turning my head. I needed all the infected attention on me at the moment. I couldn’t give Stacy and the others away, even if it meant not witnessing their sprint to safety.

As I stalked toward the beach, the first group of infected rushed me.

They didn’t get far. I pressed the trigger on my impromptu flamethrower. A line of fire ten meters long whipped out like the breath of some ancient dragon. It lit them on fire, and for those already burning, intensified the heat.

There were plenty of screams of anger and violence, but none of pain, even when they were on fire. I hosed the first wave of infected, melting both skin and flesh.

I knew I should be more disturbed by what was happening in front of me, but the honest truth was that this wasn’t the first time I had burned someone to death. Memories of what I did to my wife and unborn child’s killers tried to suck me back into the void. I refused, focusing on moving forward and saving the lives I could at the moment.

What I’d done in the past could never be forgiven. Good thing I wasn’t looking for forgiveness.

“I thought there were more of you!?” I bellowed into the night. “Where are you now? You want us so bad? Well, here we are!”

The heat of the inferno licked at my face, making me blink as I finally reached the shore and began to maneuver through the walls of flames. The armor I wore kept the worst of the heat from my body at bay. My face, on the other hand, was another story. I found myself wishing David had picked up the helmet that went with the suit when he found it.

The beach was a fiery blaze of scorched sand, dying bodies, and other bodies that were either on fire and running at me or had somehow remained out of the blasts. These were still headed my way.

I used the flamethrower as sparingly as possible. Traveling up the beach was more difficult than I expected. The infected were coming from every direction. While being on fire didn’t seem to stop them, the act of the fire eating at them finally would.

A scream from my left warned me of danger as an elderly woman ran at me. I sent a shot of flame in her direction. The initial force of the flames only made her pause for a second before she was running at me again. A second burst of flame at her legs ate away at her muscle enough for her to fall and burn.

And so it went over and over again until the worst possible case scenario came to fruition. The flamethrower broke.

23

I still had four canisters of the Lestrium strapped to my belt. If the flamethrower had just gone out, it wouldn’t have really been an issue. Seeing the brief pause in my attack gave the infected courage. They came at me in a rush. Hands reached for me from all directions. They ripped the flamethrower from my hands. At the same time, I was wrapped up from behind.

“You will not kill us. We are many,” the man’s voice in my ear screamed.

I leaned forward, then sent my head back into my attacker’s face with all the force I could muster. There was a crunching as the back of my skull made contact with his nose. This didn’t cause him to fully let me go, but I did feel a moment where his grip on me loosened.

I took the opportunity to tear free. I was about to take a gamble. I unsnapped my belt and held up the last four closed canisters of Lestrium.

“You know what this is?” I asked. “You know what this will do to us all?”

My ploy worked at least for the moment. The infected surrounding me stopped their advance. Out of the group of infected staring at me, a young girl stepped forward.

She was the poster child for one of those old horror movies. Dark hair over half her face, black eyes, black veins running from her mouth and hands. Ebony liquid dripped from her ears.

“You think there aren’t more of us?” the kid from the horror movie asked. “You can kill us all here on the beach, and we will live on. We are spreading through your people, and we are many.”

“I’m not really sure who ‘we’ are, but we are about to get blown to kingdom come if you don’t get back,” I said, letting the belt sway in my hand.

“You cannot kill us.” The little girl gave me a creepy smile. “You may kill the hosts, but you will not kill us.”

“I know we came to your planet uninvited, but we don’t want trouble. We’re just trying to live long enough to find a way off,” I said, taking a chance. “I don’t know who or what you are. I don’t understand the hold you have on my people, but if you think we’re here for you or your planet, you’re wrong.”

“That’s what the others said.” The little girl was working her way into a frenzy. “The others burned us and banished us to the jungle! We will not let you do the same.”

Peace talks were suspended upon further notice as the little girl, and those around her rushed me again. All around me, flames were still licking the beach sand. I chose a patch of flames just five meters from my right and threw the belt of Lestrium toward it in a high