Free ARES Virus: Arctic Storm by John O'Brien Page A

multitude of bodies lying sprawled in lawns and near the cars, though there are two corpses in the middle of the street with spent shell casings littering the nearby pavement.
    Seeing the brass shells, Brown would like to search for additional weapons, but time is the one commodity he doesn’t have at the moment. Movement a couple of blocks away catches his attention. Without a sound, a small group of infected races across an intersection.
    Well, there goes that theory. I guess we won’t be able to detect the infected by screams alone , he thinks, watching the group disappear from view down a side street.
    “We’ll keep to the backyards and quickly cross any streets we come to. There are infected about, and we’ll have to cross other fences like the one we just did. Do you think you will be able to scale the next one more quietly? I need an honest answer here,” Brown asks, turning to address the cadets.
    Hayward nods and Clarke whispers, “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”
    “Good enough,” Brown responds.
    The three race across the street and into the shadows. With the sun rising ever higher, Brown feels the warmth of the day taking over. A breeze eddying around the houses and through the yards keeps the rising heat from becoming stifling, but it’s still felt. The sweat from the day’s stress combines with that from the day before, adding a little ripeness to the air whenever they pause. The only sounds that reach them are the “tic-tic-tic” of sprinklers and the occasional “ping” from metal expanding in the sun’s warmth. Each fence they come to is carefully scaled, sometimes with the assistance of various objects found around the yard to aid them—garbage cans, swimming pool ladders, patio furniture. Slowly, they make their way through the neighborhood, at times hiding from small groups of infected they luckily manage to spot first.
    Tension builds with each yard they pass through, with each street they cross. As they move further though the neighborhoods, Brown feels as if they’ve already stretched their luck past the breaking point. To him, reality feels thinner, as if they’ve cheated it and shouldn’t have made it this far…that now it’s just a matter of time. In a strange contradiction, each section of the housing area feels harder to pass through—like the very air is becoming thicker. It’s as if pushing against a giant rubber ball: easy going at first, but as the ball compresses, it puts up more resistance. Brown feels they’ll eventually come to a point where they won’t be able to go any further, no matter how hard they strive.
    Crouching at the corner of a house, Brown pushes the feeling aside and motions for them to sprint across yet another street strewn with debris from a day and night of terror. Rounding the rear of a car, leaping over a bicycle on its side, and hopping over a curb, movement to the side catches his eye. Less than a block away, a group of infected rounds the street corner. The infected pause; Brown and the cadets don’t. They have won the “who is more surprised” contest, although this is still just round one of the “suddenly running into each other game”: A game in which the three of them can’t afford to lose a single round.
    Of course they would decide to come at this very moment. Brown thinks, kicking his legs into a higher gear.
    “Into the house—run!” Brown shouts.
    The startled inactivity of the infected is short-lived. With a chorus of screams, they set off after the three. Bounding to the porch in one leap, Brown is tempted to turn to see what kind of a lead they have. However, the shrieks and the sound of pounding feet tell him all he needs to know. If he were to turn, he would be overwhelmed within seconds. Hitting the partially open door with his shoulder, he launches into the house.
    A staircase in the foyer leads upward. Ahead, a long hall stretches almost the whole length of the interior with rooms branching to one