Plagued States of America (Book 5): Plagued [The Angel Rise Zombie Retribution Experiment]

by Army, Better Hero

  The soldier sank to one knee for a second, adjusted his weapon, and moved to the right of the screen, which was the bottom of what Hank was looking at with the wonky angle. A second soldier in white camouflage came through the door, checking his sides as well, but Hank ignored him. He squinted to see the face of the first soldier as he passed out of sight.

  “No way,” Hank breathed just as a third figure appeared in the doorway. No one noticed Hank’s outburst because the third person in the video was Wendy, but he hadn’t been surprised by her. He hardly noticed her at all. What caught him off guard was recognizing the first soldier. Tony Reese. The Pentagon was right. Reese was definitely not military.

  “…coming only minutes after another woman forced Doctor O’Farrell outside at gunpoint…”

  The soldiers converged in front of the camera and moved past it. Wendy had been standing in the doorway with a shell-shocked expression, but now moved in with them, past the camera.

  “…we have amplified the audio. The moaning you are hearing we believe is coming from Larissa Jefferson…”

  Sure enough, there was loud moaning from the girl, the zombie longing Hank knew all too well.

  “Aladdin, Brick Four,” came the familiar voice of Tony Reese. “Asset One secure. Scramble rendezvous, evac point Charlie. Repeat, evac point Charlie.” There was a brief pause. “You want point or payload?”

  “I’ll take the girl,” the other soldier said. Hank didn’t recognize him or his voice.

  “[beep], Moby,” Reese snapped. “Did you cut her?”

  The sound of thrashing and grunting cut in and out of the audio.

  “She’s scared,” Hank heard Wendy telling them. The video feed may as well have been a still shot for as much as anyone could see, but there was concern and fear in Wendy’s voice. “She’s not good with change. It’s okay, Larissa.” And then Wendy began cooing, a trilling that cut in and out against the background noise. “I can handle her,” Wendy eventually said, and the silence became so penetrating that Hank could swear he heard gunfire in the distance.

  “Let’s go,” the voice of Reese said.

  “…and again, what is about to happen may be disturbing. If you have children or young adults watching, please ask them to leave the room. If you are at all…”

  Hank ignored the anchorwoman’s words. The two soldiers passed over the camera and fanned out. Wendy came next, walking with Larissa’s arm draped around her neck, half-dragging her, half-leading her as they walked toward the far door.

  The two soldiers stopped and Reese put a finger to his ear.

  “Aladdin, repeat last order.”

  “Who the fuck is Aladdin?” Hank whispered.

  Captain Palmer glanced at him and shrugged. “Not one of our Ops call signs.”

  “[Beep] that,” the second soldier called Moby said, his tone distressed.

  “Aladdin, Brick Four, Alpha Dog,” Reese said. “Confirm kill order on Asset Two.”

  Wendy’s legs slowly gave out. “Wait,” she said, but it came out a raspy whisper, followed by a cough to clear her throat. “Guys, wait. There’s a mistake.” She turned toward Moby. “I’m not part of this,” she said. “These people—”

  “Reese,” Moby pleaded. It was Reese. “This is bull-[beep]. Just leave her.”

  “You heard the order.”

  “Yeah. I’m not doing it. [Beep] that.”

  Wendy sank to her knees, Larissa’s weight pulling her down. “Please,” she begged.

  “Oh my God,” Hank grumbled and straightened. He wanted to climb through the laptop screen and strangle Reese. He was just the kind of mother fucker who would do it, too. He’d pull the trigger. God damned son-of-a-bitch!

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Reese said, ripping the Velcro from his pistol holster. “Orders are orders.”

  “Oh, [beep],” Wendy cried as Reese aimed his pistol at Wendy.

  “Don’t do it, Reese,” Hank whispered.

  A sudden snap, snap, snap, snap made Hank flinch. Wendy jerked, but she didn’t fall. Both soldiers went down, Reese falling like a stone, the other crouching to return fire toward the doorway. His weapon sang with automatic bursts going thump, thump, thump, thump, thump as one man in the doorway fell, toppling forward. Another man took his place, firing snap, snap. The second soldier cried out and fell to his side, then fired a spray of bullets at the doorway as he got up and limped away out of the screen’s view, yelling, “Brick Four, Brick Four, taking fire!”

  “Wendy,” a man shouted from the doorway.

  “…as we said, this whole scene was graphically violent and disturbing to watch…”

  “Get the [beep] over here,” the man in the doorway cried, waving for her to run to him.

  Hank let out his breath. His fists were balled tight and he had to concentrate to straighten his fingers. “Who the hell is that?”

  More gunfire sang as the man in the door fired in the direction the soldier had retreated. The soldier’s automatic rifle returned a barrage of wood-splintering bullets that kept the man pinned in the doorway.

  Captain Palmer put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the video. “Keep watching.”

  “I can’t. This is driving me fucking nuts.”

  But he watched anyway.

  “Wendy, come on,” the man in the doorway cried out, but he didn’t sound as loud as before.

  “…we’re turning down the audio again due to the proximity of…”

  “Just run for it,” the man at the door shouted. “I’ll cover you.”

  “Wait,” Wendy told him. “Moby? Are you okay? You look shot.”

  “I’m fine,” the voice of the soldier called back sarcastically from off screen. “How about you?”

  “No, you’re not. I saw your leg.”

  “Wendy, come on,” the man at the door urged, and Hank agreed. What the hell was Wendy thinking? Run! Run like hell.

  “Moby, don’t shoot,” Wendy said. “If you kill me, he’ll kill you.” Then she stood up straight.

  “Wendy, what are you [beeeep] doing?” The man at the door shouted.

  “Seriously,” Hank said. “What’s she thinking?”

  “Moby, I’m coming over to help you. If you shoot me, you’re probably going to die. Do you have a CAT in your pack?”

  “Left shoulder,” the soldier replied from somewhere off-screen. “Outer flap, marked with the med plus.”

  Wendy stepped out from behind the cubicle wall she had been hiding behind and raised a pistol she had grabbed from off the ground—the very pistol Reese was going to kill her with. Reese’s body lay still, good and dead, or at least Hank hoped so. The son of a bitch was really going to kill her. Just like that. Goddammit if Hank wasn’t right to kick Reese’s ass off his security team back in the day. Good riddance seeing him dead.

  “Troy, grab Larissa,” Wendy said as she rushed off screen.

  Hank hadn’t heard what they were saying in the video, or paid much attention to her digging a medical pack out of Reese’s backpack, but now that she ran off camera he stood straight again. “Where the hell is she going now?”

  Even Penelope cast a glare his way. If she could put a sentence together, she probably would have told him to shut the hell up. Her agitated expression wasn’t just for Hank, though. Tom’s intensity was visibly bothering Penelope. The last time he looked this angry, they went to Midamerica to save his father. Hank didn’t think any visits with Tom’s father right now would go as smoothly.

  “Wait for it,” Captain Palmer said, putting her good hand on Hank’s shoulder. He glanced at her fingers, licking his suddenly dry lips, swallowing hard. He looked at Palmer and she nodded slightly toward the screen.

  The man named Troy didn’t pick up Larissa. He crouched down and fumbled with the camera that was watching him, unlatching it from something. He turned it around, asking, “Is this thing on?” He sounded astonished. He righted the camera and Penelope’s head tilted back to normal with it. The camera panned along the room,
which was some old office with three doors. Along the far wall were file cabinets and stacked boxes, the walls painted over in graffiti-like fashion in an odd mural of a hundred different themes. And there was Wendy, kneeling over the other soldier, who was sitting with his back to the wall. She held a hand on the man’s bloody leg as she shook open a bag, saying, “Give me your hand.”

  The camera swung back abruptly to the man holding it, the one from the doorway, the one Wendy called Troy. He stared at the camera with wide-eyed disbelief. “They just tried to kill her, and she’s going to save his life. [Beep].” He shook his head and his eyes looked up at the top of the screen just as the video ended.

  “…and that was the end of the feed,” the anchorwoman said. “Once again, Doctor Wendy O’Farrell and the missing girl Larissa Jefferson, daughter of Senator William Jefferson, appear to have been involved in some kind of skirmish involving military…”

  “Jesus Christ, Dad,” Tom breathed as he straightened. His anger had faded, replaced now with a look of shock and confusion.

  “Don’t worry,” Hank said to Tom. “That guy Troy will take care of them.” Hank wanted to say more, but didn’t think anything else would make a difference. The kid had been wrong about his father taking Larissa, and it probably bothered him, but in a way, he was also dead on. His old man sent soldiers to retrieve her, and things went sideways in a hurry because of it.

  Tom shook his head and backed away from the table. Penelope moved with him, putting her head against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her and whispered, “It’s okay.”

  Hank didn’t want to ask what his brother had sent on the phone. Not just yet.

  Ten

  “How’s your arm?” Hank asked Captain Palmer as they stood alongside the line of refugees from the EPS waiting to board the tug back to civilization. He couldn’t get the thought of her good arm pressed against his, or her hand on his shoulder earlier, out of his head. The moment hadn’t lasted nearly as long as he would have liked.

  Tom and Penelope were waiting beside them, quiet like statues. Hank didn’t like the silence. Out in biter territory was one thing, but here, especially given the idea that Hank would probably never see the captain again once he got on the tug, the quiet didn’t sit well with him.

  “Hurts like a son of a bitch,” she said, lifting the immobilized arm slightly. It made her wince and she gently relaxed it.

  “Sorry,” Hank said. “It must….” He shrugged. Damned loss for words.

  “I wanted to ask,” Captain Palmer said, turning to Tom. “How did you know this was going to happen? I mean, you and I cut the sentry ring three weeks ago.”

  Tom didn’t answer at first. He mulled on the question.

  “Yeah, kid,” Hank said. “What gives?”

  “I didn’t know,” Tom replied, and he sounded genuine. “I didn’t want to be blown to shit over a minor accident, though. That stupid fucking sentry rule already slaughtered hundreds. The way I see it,” he added, looking directly at Captain Palmer. “We saved over a hundred lives today by cutting its power. Thanks for trusting me on that.”

  Captain Palmer nodded. “Like you said, it’s a stupid rule. It may have made sense ten years ago, when we were losing, but not now.” She shook her head, her disgust apparent.

  Things got quiet again. The line of people shuffled forward, those who could stand, at least. They had already loaded the badly wounded using stretchers, handing them across to waiting hands on deck because the gangway had fallen into the channel from the blast. A group of soldiers from the opposite side of the channel helped people leap aboard after checking their identification by scanning their RFID chips. Hank wasn’t worried. He had a chip. It was an old one, but it worked. This was just another reason Penelope couldn’t cross. She had no identity.

  Hank sighed. “What did your stupid brother have to say earlier?”

  Tom glanced at him.

  “On your phone. He sent you one of those jingles when we were in the tent.”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. ‘Saw news. No texts. Come back over.’”

  Hank laughed. “Is he sending a limo or something?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t texted him back yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Tom shrugged. “Make him sweat. Besides, I have my own plans.”

  “Yeah,” Hank said, and they involve me, he thought. He turned to face Tom and held out his holstered pistol. “The line’s nearly done. I’m going to get aboard before they change their minds about letting me go.”

  Tom took Hank’s weapon in his left hand and shook hands with the other. “You remember what I told you to tell Sayad, right?”

  “Yeah,” Hank replied, clapping Tom on the shoulder. “I got it. I won’t let you down. And thanks for getting me out.”

  “Same to you,” Tom replied.

  Hank winked at Penelope and let Tom’s hand go. “See you around, Kitty.”

  Penelope smirked. “Bye,” she breathed, the sound a little more throaty than it should have been, and drawn out, but good enough. People on the other side would just think she had a condition. Who the hell would suspect she was a zombie, after all?

  Hank side-stepped in front of Captain Palmer. “I’d shake your hand, too, but seeing what state it’s in….” He felt awkward. He didn’t really know what to say to her as way of goodbye. He wanted to ask her for her phone number, or if maybe they could get together for lunch sometime when this was all long over and their lives were back to normal.

  Normal. What the hell would that be?

  She smiled. “Why don’t you just walk me to the boat.”

  Hank’s heart stammered. He stared at her dumbfounded, his damned words all jumbled up in his head. The only thing he could think to do or say was to step back and usher her, saying, “After you.”

  Captain Palmer nodded to Tom. “I’ll see you around, then. Whatever you’re doing, don’t get caught.”

  “I’m not planning on it,” Tom told her.

  She took the lead, marching more than walking. Hank eyed Tom, perplexed by the situation, but jumped in step behind Captain Palmer as they headed toward the tug. “So, wait a second,” Hank said. “You’re getting on the tug, aren’t you?”

  She let out a laugh. “Yes,” she said, turning a playful eye his direction. “Yes, I am.”

  Eleven

  Hank was the last person allowed to board the tug. They held him aside in case any other injured survivor was brought down. Finally, as the engines growled, one of the soldiers waved for him to jump aboard. He didn’t like the idea of missing and falling into the channel only to get chewed up by the propellers, so he made damned sure he cleared the distance and then some. He looked back and saw Tom turning away, not even waving. Penelope didn’t follow Tom like she usually did. She stared in awe and wide wonder as the tug crept away. Maybe she was putting herself in his shoes, wondering what it might feel like to cross. As far as Hank knew, she had never even been on a boat this size. The closest was back at Biter’s Hill when Peske saved everyone in his duck, cruising through the choppy waters, listing to the side, nearly sinking as they made their way to shore downriver.

  Hank waved to Penelope, but she didn’t return the gesture. When the distance between her and Tom grew more than she cared for, she turned and rushed to catch up with him, and that was that.

  The deck of the tug usually carried cargo of some kind, mostly in the form of either steel containers like the ones stacked on ocean-going vessels, or it could park two 24-foot trucks side-by-side. The front of the tug had been converted into a shelter that could hold about forty passengers. Right now, it was far over capacity, with standing room only for anyone not laid out on a stretcher. Hank looked everyone over, thinking how Tom was right. He’d saved every one of these people by cutting the sentry ring. Somebody in the Rurals was fuming mad about it right now, but to hell with those clowns. The kid did good.

  Hank found Captain Palmer leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, head
back against the vibrating bulkhead. The engine noise drowned out most of the moaning from those agonizing over their burns, broken limbs, and patched up gushers. He wove his way around the maze of stretchers covering the deck to finally slide in next to her. She opened one eye at him.

  “You again, huh?” She closed her eye.

  Hank opened his mouth. Closed it. He couldn’t think of anything to say, but he didn’t want to waste the only opportunity he had to talk to her. “I’m, uh,” he said, licking his lips. She didn’t open her eyes. “My name’s Hank.” He settled on that because he wasn’t sure if they had ever actually been introduced.

  “We’ve met,” she replied with a smirk.

  “Yeah, well,” Hank stammered, a little flustered. “I only know you as captain, so I figure, I don’t know, maybe I never told you my name.”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied. “I know who you are. I check up on every hunter who sets foot on my station. Except you didn’t check in when you first arrived, did you?”

  “Well, I, uh.” Shit, she was talking about when they arrived from Rock Island, back when Tom snuck him and Wendy and that soldier boy Jones into the EPS. “Given the circumstances at the time—”

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said, finally opening her eyes. The weary lines under her eyes hinted at pain. Her arm must have been killing her. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”

  Hank let out his breath. “Did they give you any pain pills for that?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t take them. There are plenty worse than me who need it more.”

  “I’ve got some aspirin in my wallet if you want them?”

  She smiled. “The last boy scout.”

  “Something like that,” he said and grinned.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Look, I, uh.” Hank looked at the ground and shook his head. “I don’t even know your name. I mean, what should I call you?”

  “Captain,” she replied.

  Hank squinted, eyeing her.

  She kept a straight face a moment, then cracked a smile. “I’m kidding. My name’s Rebecca.”