On “bring your daughter to work” day, Teresa remembered it being pretty busy. This time even the reception desk was unoccupied. Was this how it always looked on work days?
Then Teresa noticed her mother tensing at the sight of the empty lobby.
Something was wrong.
They stepped out, her mother moving her along impatiently.
Teresa saw one person, although he didn’t look right. He wore a filthy lab coat and stumbled as he walked. She suddenly felt anxious.
“Hey, is that you, Raymond?” her mom called out. “Where is Stacey?”
The man didn’t answer.
Teresa’s feeling got worse and she grabbed her mom’s arm, pulling tight to her side as they walked down the hall to catch up to the man.
Her mom shouted the man’s name again twice, then grabbed the shambling person by the shoulder.
The monster that turned around hissed at her, his ripped up mouth agape as it tried to bite her. The monster’s skin was torn from his face and there were gaping wounds in his throat.
Teresa screamed.
Her mom quickly pulled her back to the elevator, and tried to use her card on the control, but it didn’t seem to be responding. It just gave that dull beep when things were wrong.
The elevator door closed just before the thing got to them.
“The labs are on lockdown,” her Mom said mostly to herself, trying to press the upper floor buttons with no success. “Damn, if it’s that bad, it shouldn’t have let us off on this floor. And why wasn’t security aware?”
Finally, the elevator responded and they rose up a couple of floors.
But when the doors slid open, things were worse, much worse.
Standing in front of the opening elevator doors were a dozen bloody and torn up creatures.
As one, they turned toward Teresa and her mom.
Chapter 5
A few minutes after he had entered, Jeff Beal left Ancient Tomes with a bag full of books, surprised they weren’t more expensive than they had been. There was no way of telling how useful they would be. Most of the books had print dates going back decades, so he hoped they would have more nuanced information than he found online.
Detective Costner was still on the scene and offered to take him to a drive-through.
Jeff agreed. He wasn’t getting paid much since most of his salary got deposited in a municipal trust until he turned eighteen. Free food was free food.
“You’re looking kind of glum considering we just took down a pretty dangerous street gang and pulled a lot of weaponry off the street,” the Detective offered.
“I choked in there,” Jeff admitted. “I recognized one of the gang members and almost let him get away. He dropped his gun, so he wasn’t a threat anymore, but still. I don’t think Erica would have hesitated. She was a terror.”
“That she was,” Detective Costner agreed. “It just takes time.”
“How long, though? It seems nothing we’ve done has put a dent in the crime wave that’s been going on since she died,” Jeff complained. “And with the supernatural creatures showing up and gangs fighting to see who’s on top, I don’t-” He stopped as the car turned into the drive-through.
“People are scared,” Costner agreed. “And when they’re scared, they do desperate things. When they’re scared and greedy, they go too far. We do our best until it passes because it will. It always does. It took, what? Five minutes for you to take that gang out. Word is going to spread that the new Force isn’t a pushover.”
Detective Costner ordered himself a combo and three for Jeff. He pulled into a spot in the lot and they ate in the car.
In between bites, the detective nodded to the shopping back Jeff kept on the floor between his knees.
“So what did you get from the occult shop?” he asked with a smirk. “A Ouija board? Think you might be able to get some advice from beyond the grave?”
Jeff made a noise of disgust and pulled out the collection of old hardcovers he bought.
Detective Costner grimaced as he looked over the titles. “Vampires: The Mystic Truth? Lycanthropy throughout History? The Tome of Testaments?” he said, then added, “you’d be better off reading Frankenstein for all the good those will do you.”
Before Jeff could come up with a response, the Detective put his drink down in the cup holder and fumbled for his buzzing smartphone. He frowned as he saw who was calling, but answered it anyway.
“What the hell?” he asked, looking confused. “Hello, hello? Joanne, can you hear me? Damn.”
“What’s going on?” Jeff asked.
“It’s Joanne’s number, but it sounds like she’s watching a horror film. I can’t make anything out.”
“Let me hear.”
Costner tapped the screen to turn on the speakerphone.
The sounds of grunts, hisses, and distant yells filled the car.
“Do you recognize those voices?” Jeff asked.
The detective’s eyes grew wide. “That’s Joanne and Teresa!”
Costner immediately radioed the precinct, requesting a track be put on his ex-wife’s phone number.
After a few tense moments, dispatch called back with an address.
The detective flipped on his siren and pealed out into the street, shouting over the radio, “Send backup. Send whoever you’ve got!”
“What address is that?” Jeff asked, holding on as the police car weaved through the early afternoon traffic.
“The government lab were Joanne works,” Detective Costner said not turning to him. “Something’s gone horribly wrong over there.”
Chapter 6
Detective Costner’s Crown Royal pulled up at the lab building, but couldn’t make it to the doors through the crowd.
Jeff got out and headed into the mix of people in lab coats and suits standing around the concrete courtyard in front of the building. He drew breath to identify himself, but the detective beat him to the punch.
“Tom Costner, Dover City Police,” the man announced, displaying his badge. “What’s going on here? Anybody here in authority?”
“I’m the head researcher for GeneCorp, Doctor Mark Ellers,” one white-haired man in a lab coat stated. “There’s been some kind of breach, I think. The building has been locked down. It’s standard procedure.”
“What could cause this?” Jeff asked. “We heard animal noises and screams over a phone call from inside. What kind of research is being done in there?”
The researcher glared at him, scowled, then seemed to recognize the suit Jeff was wearing and gulped.
“Answer,” Detective Costner demanded.
“Could be a number of things,” Doctor Ellers said. “There are more than thirty labs on this site doing everything from chemical, biological, to viral research, advanced physics, and energy sciences.”
“They were goddamn cannibals,” a man in a blood-stained lab coat cried out. “Wild undead roaming the halls.”
“Are you serious?” Costner asked, not sounding convinced.
“That’s crazy talk,” Doctor Ellers scoffed.
“It’s what I saw on the security monitors in the lobby,” the man insisted.
“So they’re dead and they’re walking? Like on TV?” Jeff asked, turning to Detective Costner. “What do we call them? Shamblers? Lurchers? Biters?”
“Just call them zombies,” Detective Costner said.
“Fine,” Jeff replied, feeling exasperated. First vampires. Then werewolves. Now zombies? What was happening in this city? When will this end?
Jeff glanced up at the big concrete building, looking to see if there was another entrance. There were few windows and they looked as thick as the ground-floor security glass. A shiver passed through him. Something weird was going on in that building and it wasn’t all about zombies. There was a UQ in there as well. Possibly two. He couldn’t tell at this distance. A zombie-master, maybe? It sounded stupid, but he started to realize that he couldn’t discount any idea, no matter how ridiculous
it was.
Detective Costner stared at the man in the bloody lab coat, then turned back to Doctor Ellers. “How do we get in?”
“A containment team will be here shortly,” Doctor Ellers said. “They’ll give you the all clear when they’re done.”
“How long will that take?” Detective Costner growled.
Jeff’s helmet picked up sirens in the distance, probably their backup.
“At least an hour or two,” Doctor Ellers told him. “The team has to be flown in from the capital.”
A couple cop cars pulled in at that moment. Cops piled out.
Detective Costner tried his ex-wife’s number again, but there was no answer.
The uniformed officers approached. One asked, “What’s going on, detective?”
“The hell if I know,” Costner admitted. “We’ve got to find a way into this building. My wife and daughter are in there!”
Jeff gave Detective Costner a double take. Tom and his wife had been separated for nearly a year and divorced for a few months now. The man almost never talked about it, but it was weird hearing him refer to Joanne as his “wife” as opposed to his “ex” or by her name. Then again, Jeff hadn’t heard from his mother since she abandoned him years ago and he barely talked to his dad even though they still lived together, so he wasn’t going to start judging anyone.
The cops’ attempts to get in were blocked by thick bulletproof glass, sealed exists, and impenetrable garage doors.
Jeff concentrated on that shiver he felt earlier. It passed through him again as he focused on the building.
“SWAT and fire department,” Costner said over his phone. He started making arrangements then pounded his fist on the garage door.
“There’s something else,” Jeff told him. “I’m sure there’s a Unique in there. That makes this my job, not SWAT or whatever ‘containment team’ the government is sending. I have been the one to check it out before anyone else’s lives are put at risk.”
Costner stared at him. His shoulders dropped slightly. He narrowed his gaze, then nodded. “You have a point. Okay. Get in there. Find Joanne and Teresa and get them out.” His tone shifted from grudging agreement to something that sounded more like a plea.
“I will,” Jeff replied. He walked through the crowd to the front doors. With a single strike, he crushed the door handle inward. The lock broke and he pulled the heavy doors open.
“Make sure nothing gets out,” Jeff told Detective Costner from over his shoulder. “Shoot for their heads first. That’s supposed to work.”
“On TV,” Costner noted.
“Let’s hope it’s right for once,” Jeff told him, then entered and closed the door behind him.
Chapter 7
The lobby was dark, lit only by what peaked through the metal barriers that had come down over the glass. That was police level protection.
What kind of research was going on here?
Were these barricades set up to keep people out or to keep the monsters in?
He got to the security desk, but all the monitors were black. None of the switches worked either.
Jeff decided to concentrate on the sensation of the Unique he sensed earlier. The UQ was somewhere above him, at least a hundred feet. The building wasn’t that tall for downtown, maybe thirty floors.
He was so intent on the sensation of the mystery UQ, Jeff didn’t notice the approaching man until he wheezed and reached out to him.
Jeff thrust out a flat hand, but the man was a little stronger than he looked and the hit only knocked the man into the chair by the wall.
Then, as the chair rolled a few inches, a thin beam of light caught what was left of the man’s face.
Jeff gasped when he saw the man’s hanging left eye and torn flesh that dangled over the formerly white uniform, now stained red and brown with blood. Most of the man’s right upper arm was missing and his right ankle was bent completely backward.
Even so, the man rose from the black plastic rolling chair and dove for Jeff a second time.
Jeff knocked it back down, then pulled out one of his sets of extendible handcuffs and cuffed it into immobilization. It wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. The thing was stronger than a regular human and continued to snap at him. Thankfully it wasn’t nearly as strong as a vampire or a werewolf.
“Thanks for small favors,” Jeff said to himself.
This guy must have been the lobby security guard before the zombies got a hold of him.
But were they zombies?
They were undead, but was this magical or some kind of science experiment gone wrong?
And what did that Unique have to do with this?
There were too many questions and Jeff sensed time was growing short.
He spotted a door behind the security desk and opened it. It was a bathroom. He shoved the creature inside and closed it, then bend the knob and scratched ‘zombie’ on the door as a warning to anyone else who came through.
Jeff found the door to the main stairwell smashed open with a blood trail leading into the darkness. Up there somewhere was the Unique and a truckload of zombies the lab technician said he saw on the monitors.
He began climbing the stairs, listening for zombies and thinking about how he was going to deal with them when he came across them. Gas was probably useless. Rubber bullets might clear a path, but wouldn’t likely keep them back for long. The explosive rounds and armor-penetrating bullets would be overkill and might hurt a civilian in the crossfire.
He thought of what had been effective at the warehouse earlier and read the backs his fists to make sure they had recharged.
His new EM pulse impact gauntlet upgrades would likely send the creatures flying without damaging them too much. He had practiced his aim enough to avoid recklessly injuring any survivors. That was likely the most effective option for the moment, even if it did require getting close.
Jeff wasn’t worried about getting bitten or scratched. He was covered head to toe with Kevlar and stab resistant material designed to handle UQ and military grade attacks. Even if something did get through, his own metabolism and immune system should be enough to resist whatever had caused this zombie outbreak. So far, he had proven resistant to Ebola and sarin gas, but he wasn’t interested in field testing whatever the hell this was.
Closing in on the sensation of the Unique, Jeff slowly opened the broken-out stairwell door into a hallway and checked the corners. No one was there, but he did hear a noise coming from around the corner.
Chapter 8
Mom had introduced Teresa to the thin man once before. Teresa forgot his name and almost didn’t recognize him in his crouched position on the floor.
“We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die,” the thin young man repeated as he rocked back and forth.
Her mom and a bald older man with glasses were trying to calm the thin man down, but they weren’t doing so well.
The thin man swatted them away and screamed, “No! get away from me!”
“Geez, shut up Dave,” the older man said, keeping his voice low. “Those things will hear you. Then we’ll all be dinner.”
“What does it matter, Gary?” Dave replied. “We’re all dead. There’s no way of getting past those things out there. We’re trapped in a locked-down building and we’re going to die!”
“Those things are our co-workers,” Teresa’s mom insisted. “There has to be a way to help them. An antidote or a vaccine.”
“Those things are freaking flesh-eating zombies, Joanne,” Dave’s shrill voice rose again. “They will eat us alive.”
“Pull yourself together,” Gary replied, then pointed at Teresa. “There’s a nine-year-old in here who’s handling this better than you.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know what’s coming,” Dave insisted.
What was coming? Teresa wondered, feeling a pull towards the barricaded door. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. A shiver ran up her spine. Her senses reached beyond the door and down the
hall to something that was getting closer. And it wasn’t just the zombies that were milling about. It was freaky, but she could almost visualize it all in her mind.
She was curious, amazed at all these new kind of feelings she was experiencing. It was like when she’d used that… power to knock the bullies away from her. She kind of wanted more.
Should she be afraid of the thing that was getting closer, like they all were afraid of the monsters? For some reason, she wasn’t.
“There is something coming,” she said aloud. “But I don’t know what it is.”
That got her mom’s attention.
“Teresa, honey, what are you talking about?” she asked in a worried voice.
“I don’t know,” she offered honestly, and even a little excitedly. “But it’s coming closer.”
Teresa breathed as the powerful sensation flooded her thoughts.
Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door.
Before anyone could do anything more than turn to look, something was tearing the door off of its hinges, then kicking away the cabinet they had braced against it.
Teresa recognized him instantly as Force, Dover City’s superhero. He was the one that replaced the woman who died a few weeks back. That woman was why her parents were no longer together. She didn’t know the details, but she knew that much. The pull she felt earlier rushed over her, making her want to get away even though there was nowhere to go.
“Which one of you did this?” Force barked. “Who is in control of those zombies out there?”
“In control? No one,” Gary stated. “We’re trapped in here.”
“Who are you then?” he asked.
They all spoke up, except for Teresa.
“Okay then. I’ve cleared a way out, but we don’t have much time. Let’s go,” he said, gesturing for them to come with him.
Teresa didn’t budge, unwilling to get any closer to him. She yanked her arm away from her mother’s grip.
Force looked down at her and she saw him fully, even through the visored helmet he wore. The connection to him was like a rubber band that drew them together more tightly the closer they were. It wasn’t a sensation she liked anymore, not at all.
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