Free Operation Sea Mink by Addison Gunn

the ear and twisted her bowie knife free for another jab at his carotid artery.
    Spilling the corpses out into the street, they hopped inside, closing the doors quietly, and Miller shifted the vehicle into drive.
    After swinging around to pick up Morland, Hsiung, and the crate, Miller pulled the van out onto the beach highway, and shoved the gas pedal all the way to the floorboard.
    It wasn’t until they were many miles away that he felt his hands relax.
    Bloodstained, and gripping the steering wheel so tightly they ached, Miller wiped his bloody palms on the pants of his uniform and let out a slow, hot breath.
    Morland laughed from the back seat and Hsiung yipped with excitement.
    They were on their way home, Miller thought, his grin quickly fading—whatever was left of it.

 
    7
     
     
    T HEY TOOK SHIFTS driving through the day and got as far as Secaucus, New Jersey. There, on the I-95 north, just west of the Lincoln Tunnel, the van sputtered to a stop and died—right smack in the middle of the highway. Fungus had clogged the fuel lines, or they’d run out of gas. Either way, they were fucked.
    “Bollocks,” Morland sighed, tossing his weapon onto his shoulder and moving to the back of the van to open the tailgate.
    Assuming their prior positions lugging the crate, the four of them took to the road, opting to head east through the Lincoln Tunnel, into the city. If all went well, they’d be able to walk through Hell’s Kitchen, cross the Queensboro Bridge and arrive at the Astoria Peninsula in about three and a half hours, but Miller was too realistic to hope for that.
    For one thing, they had no food. They’d filled their canteens with water at the cottage, but that wouldn’t last long and it was already dark. For another, if NYC Infected communes were living underground, they stood a real chance of running into one inside the tunnel. But with no other viable option, and being unable to radio for help—the batteries of their short-range radios were long dead, and besides, there was no help to be had—and having slim chances of finding another vehicle to boost, they trudged on: alert, exhausted, but steadily moving.
    The tunnel, at first glance, appeared empty. Fearing to hope for a bit of luck, the team pressed forward, passing the empty toll booths and entering the tunnel on the far right. The lights were out and the tunnel was pitch black. Disregarding the walkway on the left, Morland snapped on the light mounted on his rifle and they walked in the center of the road, using the single beam of light as their only source of illumination.
    That there’d been a past commune was obvious from the smell. Mixed in with road tar and the years of exhaust that permeated the walls, the stench of body odor, waste, and burning rubber filled the two-lane channel to the point of choking. Piles of blankets and the ashes of extinguished campfires lay scattered throughout the underpass.
    The only sound was their boots echoing off the concrete walls. The temperature, a good ten degrees cooler than it had been at the opening, made the tunnel seem almost tomb-like—desolate, dangerous.
    At the midway point, as expected, they encountered a small band of Infected—three of them, huddled around a campfire and starving to the point of collapse.
    Miller and the others armed themselves, ready to dispatch them if they got aggressive, but the Infected merely lay on the ground and watched them amble by, bug-eyed, covered head-to-toe in fungal growths, mouths gaping as if they didn’t even have the energy to ask to be put out of their misery.
    One of them, a woman of indeterminate age, raised a skeletal hand a few inches into the air as Miller and the others walked by—but she said nothing.
    There was no helping them, and no one wanted to risk going nearer.
    A bullet to the head would have been the kind thing to do—unfortunately, none of them had a bullet to spare. Instead, they skirted to the far side of the tunnel and walked right