Plague Nation

by Dana Fredsti

  Right now it seemed too much like dancing on a giant grave.

  Speaking of the acrobatic devil, JT suddenly dropped his speed and settled next to me.

  “So what’s the deal with the older dude with the bite?” He spoke in a normal tone. I held up a finger and turned down an imaginary dial.

  “Do you mean Mack?” I lowered my own voice accordingly.

  He shrugged.

  “I mean the older dude with the bite,” he said, nodding in Mack’s direction. “I haven’t been formally introduced to anyone yet, you know.”

  He had a point. I tried not to let that fact irritate me.

  “What about him?” I said as we hurried past a driveway that sloped down to some loading docks. They butted up against three different buildings, and the area was crawling with zombies—so many they looked like a cluster of cockroaches.

  “I’ve seen people get bitten,” he responded. “They die. Then they come back, unless someone with triple-digit IQ points takes out their brain, right?” We moved past a phalanx of electrical transformers. “He’s obviously not feeling great, but he’s not sick. What gives?”

  What the hell, I thought. He’d risked his life for us, and we’d gone way past the point of a cover story involving Ebola and an escaped lab monkey.

  “He’s a wild card,” I said. “He’s immune to the virus. So are Lil, and Tony and Nathan and Gentry.” I pointed to each person as I named them. “And so am I.”

  JT looked intrigued, but not particularly surprised.

  “So basically, you’re saying that you guys could get chomped on like a turkey leg at the Renaissance Faire, and you’d be fine.”

  I gave him a look.

  “As long as we don’t bleed out or lose a vital organ, yeah, pretty much.”

  JT considered this.

  “How do you know if you’re immune?”

  “It’s simple,” I said. “You get bit the first time, and you don’t die.” I shivered as I remembered the feverish, agonizing pain of the zombie virus coursing through my body as my immune system fought it. “It hurts,” I added. “A lot.”

  “Huh.” JT thought about that. Then without a word he bounded ahead, springing up onto a metal railing and rebounding off the side of another phalanx of transformers with no apparent effort. Pausing briefly, he eyeballed a series of progressively taller aluminum storage sheds, and his muscles tensed.

  “No,” I hissed. He looked at me like a cat getting yelled at for planning to jump on the counter—you know, fully prepared to ignore the yelling and do it anyway. I could just imagine the hollow metallic booming his feet would make on the aluminum siding.

  “Noise!” I added in the same frantic hiss, pointing at the sheds.

  That got through to him. Instead he veered to the side and leapt onto the top of the low raised wall that bordered the foliage on the left.

  If he’s this hyper normally, I’d hate to see him on a sugar rush.

  The ground sloped upward on our left, toward the hospital building. Thankfully the hillside was clear. I dropped back next to Lil, Mack, and Gentry.

  “You hanging in there, Postman?” I asked Mack, trying not to sound too concerned. He gave me a wan smile.

  “Hanging in there, Ash.”

  “How about you, Lil?” I asked. “You need a break?”

  “No!” she snapped. “I’ve got him.”

  Over her head, Gentry and I exchanged looks.

  “Yeah, Lil and I can handle the mail,” Gentry said.

  “Hah, hah,” Mack huffed.

  Suddenly shots cracked off to our left as Nicks took out several zombies, all wearing scrubs, wandering down the bottom flight of a wooden staircase that zigzagged up into the hill above. Pretty staircase, beautiful scenery... ugly zombies.

  More came trickling down the road—these looked like hikers who’d been in the nature reserve when the shit hit the fan.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Three headshots from Jones, three dropped zoms.

  Moans rose from behind us. I looked back, and saw the zombies that had been milling around the cargo bays. Alerted by the gunfire, they’d found their way up to the road and were gravitating toward our group. There were a lot of them, and more kept pouring sluggishly from around the corner of the driveway.

  “Lots of incoming behind us,” I yelled. No point being quiet any more.

  “Double-time, people,” Gabriel hollered. Sweat poured down his face, whether from the exertion or his condition, I wasn’t certain. How long had it been since he’d had his last injection? An hour? Two?

  Ahead on our right was a blue sign with white lettering. Dr. Albert saw it and brightened visibly.

  “We’re almost there,” he panted, trying to hurry up his pace.

  The sign identified the “Center for Regenerative Medicine.”

  Now that’s subtle.

  Nicks and Nathan dropped back, turning to face the hungry mob heading up the hill, taking out those in the lead and creating stumbling blocks for those behind. It wouldn’t stop them, but it would slow them down a little bit. The sound of branches breaking and the crunch of leaves underfoot alerted me to several wobbling down the hill with an unsteady but determined gait. I started to swivel my M4 around.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  Jones beat me to it.

  Alrighty then.

  We reached a point in the road where it began curving around and up further into the nature reserve. A glass-and-metal-enclosed platform stretched ribbon-like across the hillside, improbably balanced on steel trusses and supports, framed by eucalyptus trees and fog. Suspended from the north facade were exterior ramps and staircases. The result was a building that was a work of practical art.

  A steel-and-glass bridge—sort of an enclosed catwalk—ran from the new hi-tech structure to a pair of bland and much older multi-story buildings, hitting about the ninth floor. The catwalk itself was bisected by a giant metal shaft resembling a square grain elevator, rising in between the old and new buildings. A sign proclaimed it to be “Elevator 35,” which made me wonder where elevators one through thirty-four were located.

  “There.” Dr. Albert pointed at the elevator. “We go in there.”

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  “That’s the super secret lab?” I said. “That thing out of Architectural Digest?”

  “Seriously,” JT chimed in. “That’s about as conspicuous as a secret lab could be.”

  Dr. Albert tapped one side of his face and smiled mysteriously.

  “Much like Patterson Hall, there is more than meets the eye. The elevator is just the entrance.”

  Unfortunately the entrance to the elevator lay at the base of a long wide drive that dipped down a steep hill. Between us and said entrance were more loading docks, trucks parked at odd, inconvenient angles, and dozens of zombies.

  Nathan turned to Tony.

  “Now’s the time for that big-ass shotgun of yours, kid.”

  Tony’s eyes lit up so you would’ve thought it was Christmas.

  “Cool,” he said.

  Well, as long as someone’s happy...

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  Nicks and the Gunsy Twins spread out along the top of the hill next to the drive and started picking their shots. In the meantime, the group following us up Medical Center Way grew closer—too close for comfort—so Tony made use of his BAS, blasting away as enthusiastically as a kid playing a first-person shooter.

  Gabriel surveyed the situation, and shook his head.

  “This isn’t going to work. We need to move.”

  Nathan nodded his agreement while coolly dispatching several of the zombies closing in on us from Med Center Way. Then he looked at JT.

  “You game, kid?”

  “You guys need another distraction?” JT’s eyes gleamed as he studied the struts, supports, and other opportunities all around him.

  “It would help.”

  “Tell me your heart’s desire,” JT said, “and i
t shall be yours.”

  Nathan actually grinned at that.

  “I doubt you could deliver, but how about we settle for you drawing enough of those zoms away to clear the elevator entrance.”

  Dr. Albert took a moment to understand, then smiled.

  “Ah. We have to go up—” He pointed at the catwalk. “—and then back down again.”

  “Secret elevator entrance?”

  Dr. Albert nodded.

  “Coolio,” JT said, then turned back to Nathan. “I’ll meet you up there in five or so.”

  Nathan gave him a thumbs up.

  “We’ll wait for you.”

  JT grinned at me. “But will you wait for me, baby?” He pinched my cheek, dashing off down the drive before I had the chance to swat him.

  “If he doesn’t die, I might kill him,” Gabriel muttered. Even so, he looked impressed at JT’s gravity defying progress, as he used trucks, walls, loading dock ramps, and zombies to make his way to the base of the Regenerative Medicine building, hooting and hollering all the way like a drunk at Mardi Gras.

  And once again, it worked. The zombies shifted their attention and gravitated toward the noise and motion with a comfortingly Pavlovian response. A few still focused on some tasty treats they’d found at the top of the drive, but most stumbled after JT as he led them away from the elevator shaft entrance and toward the grounds under the Regenerative Medicine building.

  Once there, he scaled the first twenty feet of the struts as if his feet and hands were made of particularly sticky adhesive.

  “He’s like fucking Spider-Man,” Tony said, reluctant admiration in his voice.

  “Well, we don’t have time to enjoy the show,” Gabriel said firmly. “Let’s move, people!”

  We ran for the elevator. Nicks stayed in front, clearing any strays that weren’t off chasing JT, while the Gunsy Twins covered our retreat by taking care of the ones closing in on our flanks. I stuck close to G and Dr. Albert, right in front of Lil, Gentry, and Mack, katana once again replacing my M4.

  Gabriel reached the elevator first, hitting the call button with his fist. A loud hum reverberated through the air as the car slowly moved from the catwalk down toward ground level.

  We’re gonna make it, I thought, just as I heard a scream of terror. Hands dripping with blood and bits reached out from the front bumper of a truck and seized Dr. Albert by his knapsack. He vanished around the front of the trunk.

  Shit!

  I rounded the corner in time to see a gore-rimmed mouth bite down on the canvas just below the doctor’s neck.

  Dr. Albert shrieked as if his flesh had been pierced, struggling frantically to shrug out of the knapsack even as the zombie—a female in skinny jeans and not much else—tugged on it, trying to reach the more edible parts.

  I chopped down on its wrists with the katana just as Dr. Albert wrenched his arms out of the straps. Dead hands and knapsack fell onto the asphalt.

  “My knapsack!” he cried.

  “Run!” I shouted as he hesitated, reaching for the fallen knapsack even as two more zombies, both in cheerful purple scrubs, staggered toward us. “I’ll get it!”

  He ran as I dispatched Skinny Jeans with a merciful decapitation, and then hamstrung the two scrubs zombies. I snatched up the knapsack, turned, and found myself face-to-face with a trucker in jeans and flannel who looked as if he’d eaten everyone of his meals at Big Texan, “home of the free 72-oz. steak.”

  Trucker Zombie grabbed me by the shoulders before I could do more than gasp, its grip like a vise as it pulled me towards its gaping, stinking mouth. I tried to swing my katana up and around, but the zombie’s sheer bulk made it impossible to get any sort of angle or leverage.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  A plug of flesh and blood exploded from the front of its forehead, spraying me with the mess as its hands loosened, letting me slip free. I looked around and saw Nicks across the way, grinning at me. I gave her a grateful thumbs up...

  ...just as her forehead exploded in a similar manner as that of the zombie she’d just shot. Her expression shifted from the grin to surprise as she crumpled to the ground, rifle falling from suddenly limp hands.

  What the fuck?

  I hit the ground just as a bullet smacked into the hood of the truck.

  “We have enemy fire!” I hollered.

  More shots cracked in the air. I heard a hoarse yell and flipped over on my back in time to see someone in fatigues falling from one of the support struts under the Regenerative Medicine building. Whoever it was hit the ground with a fleshy thump and was immediately swarmed by opportunistic zombies. By the sound of the screams, whoever it was hadn’t died on impact.

  I just wished I’d been the one to take them down, for Nicks’ sake.

  Coming up into a crouch, I hugged the bumper of the truck and did a quick scan of the underside of the building and surroundings. I sheathed my katana in favor of my M4.

  Jones took aim, fired, and another body dropped down to the ground from the far end of the building. He waved at me from one side of the elevator shaft. Davis was on the other side as the rest of the team ran for the now open elevator car. Gabriel was using his body to keep the door from closing.

  “Come on, Ash!” Gabriel shouted.

  Taking a deep breath and mentally chanting “serpentine,” I snatched up Dr. Albert’s knapsack and zigzagged my way across the rest of the open pavement to the elevator. A bullet smacked into the asphalt next to me, and then another hit Davis in the shoulder, spinning him around into the waiting hands of two zombies that had crept up from behind.

  I veered away from the elevator door and smashed the front zombie in the face with my rifle butt before it could sink its teeth into Davis’s face. Getting the barrel up, I shot the second in the head. Grabbing Davis, I shoved him toward the elevator door even as another bullet narrowly missed both of us.

  Jones was right behind us as Gabriel finally let the doors close.

  There was a gentle hum of gears and pulleys as the elevator slowly began ascending. The smell of sweat, blood, and cordite filled the car as we all squashed together, pressed for space. Mack’s face looked almost green in the artificial light that came from the top of the car.

  “Why do we have to go up to go down?” I asked. “Is this like The Poseidon Adventure where death is down at the top and life is up at the bottom?”

  Dr. Albert looked at me, head cocked to one side.

  “I think you’re in shock,” he said.

  “You may be right,” I agreed. “But seriously, what’s with the up-to-go-down business?”

  Dr. Albert pulled a key out of his pocket.

  “We wanted to make sure the lab couldn’t be accessed from the ground level,” he explained. “There’s another elevator car, but it can only be accessed from the catwalk level, and then only if you have the key.”

  “That’s fucking convoluted,” I said. “Why not just have a secret keypad access at the bottom? Why go up to go down? Why does it all have to be so... so James Bond?”

  Underneath my random irritation was a very real and justified fury. Too many good people had died to get us here. And most—if not all—of the deaths had occurred become of some assholes who had a secret agenda that included preventing us from reaching this lab.

  Weren’t flesh-eating zombies enough of an obstacle?

  Dammit, we’re trying to save people.

  I shut my eyes and leaned against the elevator wall, trying to ignore the fact that every muscle in my body ached, and that the smell of roasted flesh and gasoline still lingered in my nostrils.

  The elevator gave a gentle lurch and came to a halt.

  The doors slid open.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  As the doors opened, a rifle stock slammed into Gabriel’s jaw, knocking him back against Nathan before he drooped forward and fell half in, half out of the elevator, unconscious.

  Someon
e else drove another gunstock into Davis’s midsection, doubling him over in time to receive a crack to the head. Before the rest of us could react, we found ourselves looking down the barrels of several nasty-ass, hi-tech looking weapons, the kind Nathan collected. The kind you didn’t want to argue with.

  The firearms were held by two men in basic black camo uniforms, large Ray-Ban style sunglasses obscuring the top half of otherwise expressionless faces like bargain basement ninjas. A trio in forest camos stood behind them to our right, similarly armed.

  The man who’d just cold-cocked Davis looked in at the rest of us, studying our faces. He nodded at Dr. Albert.

  “You. Step out.”

  Dr. Albert sputtered with indignant fear, but did as he was instructed. Then the same man jerked his head down toward Gabriel’s prone body.

  “That’s the other one,” he said. Two of the men in the background reached down and dragged him the rest of the way out of the elevator. Then he was half-dragged, half carried down the catwalk toward a pair of doors that led into the two buildings a hundred feet or so off to our right.

  Dr. Albert was hustled along right after him, led by the third guy in camos.

  I started to lunge forward, but someone, probably Nathan, jerked me back before I could move more than an inch or so.

  “Don’t,” Nathan whispered into my ear. “Not now.”

  The lead guy waved his gun at us.

  “Everybody else, drop your weapons,” he said, “and step out of the elevator. Now.”

  We all set our assorted firearms, swords, pickaxes, and such on the elevator floor, then piled slowly out onto the catwalk, where we were herded to the left by the two ninja wannabes. The one in front reached in and hit a button, pulling his arm out as the doors slid shut and the car slowly descended, our weapons inside.

  “You two—” The man motioned to Lil and Gentry. “—move away from him. He can stand on his own.”

  “And if he can’t, well, too bad,” the other man said with a laugh.

  I looked quickly at Lil, hoping she wouldn’t do anything stupid. Amazingly enough, the fury of her glare didn’t burn a hole in the asshole where he stood.