“We have all we need,” Tommy said. “We’ll figure everything else out later. Burn it. We can’t let them get their hands on it.”
Guy exchanged one more concerned expression with Emin before reaching for his pocket lighter.
“Use my backpack,” Tommy said. “It’ll contain the fire.”
“You’re genuinely serious about doing this?”
“Destroy the documents so no one else discovers them? Yes.”
Guy stuffed the papers inside the backpack. Emin and Jimmy added their documents. Guy scrunched up a single sheet before setting fire to it. It caught.
Tommy shifted down a gear and forced the Humvee on to even greater speeds. Guy dropped the sheet and watched as the papers caught. He zipped it up.
Emin grabbed him by the wrist. “No! Leave it open. It needs to breathe.”
“So do we!”
“No, we don’t!” Jimmy beamed. “We don’t breathe, remember?”
Guy’s expression fell flat.
Emin ruffled Jimmy’s hair. “He’s got you there. He’s a smart little guy.”
“I still don’t fancy burning to death.”
Emin rolled her eyes “So dramatic.”
* * *
Tommy bombed down the road as fast as his Humvee could take him. It was its size that saved them—no vehicles dared get in their way. They would have been pulverized.
Tommy hit the horn, mashing it with the palm of his hand. The last time he was in this area, it was packed with people. Hopefully, the military had dispersed them all. Otherwise, there was going to be a lot of death on someone’s hands, and Tommy wasn’t about to accept any of the blame.
He throttled the brakes and turned the wheel to wind around a long corner. He clipped a couple of the temporary tents. They caught on the front wheel. One was a toilet tent. A pair of men sat on them with their trousers around their ankles. One rushed to cover himself. The other licked a finger and turned another page of his newspaper, unperturbed.
Emin checked the majority of the reports had turned to ash before opening her window.
“Not yet,” Tommy said. “If the tents catch fire, the whole place will go up.”
“Tell me when.”
Guy stared at the smoking backpack with sheer horror. “Soon! Please soon!”
Emin passed the backpack from hand to hand to disperse as much heat as possible. Guy was apoplectic.
The large tents grew more sporadic on either side. Emin held the bag out the window and awaited Tommy’s order.
“Now!”
Emin dropped it. It struck the ground with a bright but brief explosion of heat.
Guy stared at her with an expression of disbelief.
“Try working with hot machines all day,” she said, “then tell me what hot means.”
* * *
The town of Seguin was a distinctly different place to the one they had refueled at last. The zombie horde had attacked, providing the locals with more worthwhile sport than they’d expected.
Or perhaps the other way around was more correct.
Here and there Tommy spotted the tell-tale signs of intense gunfire. The scene wasn’t hard to imagine.
The zombies had drawn closer and closer, the locals entering the fray brandishing steel weapons, bows, and arrows, crossbows, anything silent and with reusable weapons. Tommy’s advice had not fallen on deaf ears.
But once the zombies got too close for comfort, the urge to reach for weapons they’d always depended on to protect them grew too strong. So why not depend on them again?
They had.
The resulting carnage was evidence enough of that. The storefronts lay decimated. The protective board’s nailed fingers torn free. The town put up a good fight but the zombies had overpowered them, sweeping them up like garbage, removing the majority of the inhabitants in the process.
The survivors looked up from sweeping the flotsam of their once vibrant town and watched as the Humvee rolled into town. The heroes that should have saved them had come to gloat over them with a wagging finger.
A mother ushered her children into their broken home. A grandfather stood over four cloth-covered bodies in the street. A man selling bottles of dirty water smacked a child who slipped one under his torn shirt.
We warned them this would happen. He did not see thankful faces for timely words of wisdom, but people angry they’d been left to make the decision themselves. And they did not appreciate it. Not in the slightest.
We shouldn’t be here.
Tommy eyed the needle. They were almost empty. If he could have continued on his way, he would have. He’d used too much in escaping the clutches of the military at San Antonio, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d hoped the zombies hadn’t yet reached the city of Houston.
Tommy noticed something was wrong with the gas station long before they pulled up to it. A huge chunk had been bitten out of the earth by a starving giant. A black stain where a pimple had once stood.
Emin leaned forward between the front seats. “Now what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Guy lowered his voice. “Now we hijack another vehicle.”
“We can’t do that to these people. Look what’s happened to them.”
Tommy glared without staring. “That’s their fault. If they’d left when I told them, they would be alive now.”
Guy held up his hands. “Look guys, all I know is, without fuel we’re not going where we need to go.”
“Uh, guys?”
They glanced first at Jimmy, then out the windows that surrounded them on every side. They might as well have been sitting in a fish tank.
Emin edged back onto her seat with Jimmy. “Tommy? What do you want to do?”
A withered fist reached up and knocked on the window. If they hadn’t seen the man knock, they would never have heard it. It was the same old-timer Tommy had spoken to outside the gas station before. Angus. His face was smudged with dirt and his clothes were stained with blood—someone else’s by the look of it.
“Howdy partner,” the old guy said. “Come for a little more of our fuel? Why don’t you hop out? We’ll get you all liquored up in no time.”
Tommy eyed the town folk over his shoulders. Dark sunken eyes clutched crude weapons of violence. “Uh. I don’t think I will.”
“Oh? You seemed quite happy to make use of our ample facilities before. Why not now?”
“I wouldn’t feel. . . comfortable.”
Angus chuckled and shared his amusement with the others. They didn’t seem to get it either. “Of course, we wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Not after we and our loved ones were butchered right here in the street.”
Angus didn’t blink. Didn’t break his concentration.
Tommy suddenly felt very vulnerable without weapons to defend himself with. He lowered his voice. “I warned you about using guns. I told you to leave the town and join the city. It’s not my fault you chose to take action against my recommendations.”
Angus lowered his voice. “You shouldn’t have come back here, hombre. It was not a wise decision, not a wise decision at all.”
Click.
The sound was small in the dead of night. Angus had cracked the cylinder on his pistol. And now he placed it against Tommy’s head.
24.
SAM
Sam couldn’t hope to escape by herself. She needed help, and of all the other researchers in the room, only one had any direct experience of it. She sidled up to Greg and tapped a message on the tabletop.
Greg lifted his hands off the desk, refusing acceptance of her messages. It was the equivalent of ignoring a ringing phone when you could see the caller’s ID.
Fast as a whip, Sam snapped her hand around his wrist and pressed it on the table. She wouldn’t be ignored. Not this time.
Greg glared at her with his swollen grey eyes.
Sam glared right back. They played their little staring contest until Greg looked away. He pulled at his hand—no doubt it ached—but Sam woul
d not release him.
His eyes shimmered with unbidden tears, a fifty-something chastened child. He possessed a lost, beaten look that had not been there before. He glanced over Sam’s shoulder in Lester’s direction, and still, she would not release him. Sam steeled her heart against the desperation she read in his eyes. Finally, his defenses destroyed, he raised his hand and, hesitating just once, tapped on her arm. “You win.”
“No,” Sam tapped back, hooking a hand around his neck and drawing him closer. “We win.”
His eyes met hers and a flicker of the heat that’d burnt like a summer wildfire stirred within those dark pits, a hint of a smile softening those steely shields.
Sam smiled with relief. It was an all-or-nothing attempt to bring him to the surface. “Glad to have you back.”
His voice croaked with lack of use. “Good to be back.”
Lester cleared his throat. “If you’re done staring into each other’s eyes, perhaps you would care to return to your stations now. We have important work to do.”
Sam returned to her station and jotted down the readings from a machine.
The Owl—the researcher on the other side of her workstation who’d made overtures toward her—vacated his spot and cast the look of a jilted suitor her way.
Sam smiled to herself. Two birds, one stone.
Lester kept a close eye on them for the next hour or so. The moment he left them to their own devices, Sam tapped out her message. “I have to leave this place.”
“Leave? Did you see what they did to me?”
“It’s worse than that.” Sam took a moment before relaying the information. “The new test subject is my former guard. Yesterday, he promised to help me escape.”
Greg started and peered over at Julius. He shook his head. “They installed him here as a message, specifically to you. That means they’re keeping a close eye on you. You’ll never get out of here now. Wait. Let the heat die down. Then try.”
“They won’t kill us. Not when we can do research they can’t do.”
Greg’s eyes turned haunted, distant. “They didn’t kill me, but they took me right to the brink. Any further, and I’d have sailed into the great abyss.”
“That’s why I have to escape. And you have to help me. I know it’s asking a lot. What they’re doing to us here, it can only end one way.”
Greg’s finger twitched before tapping out an approved message. “I know. And there’s something else I know too. There’s only one way out of here, and that’s through that elevator.”
Sam turned her head just enough to see the open doorway beckoning in her peripheral vision. The way out.
“We need the key that bastard carries, otherwise we’re whistling in the wind. He carries wherever he goes. That knowledge cost me these cuts and bruises, and almost my life. You might be cute as a button, but I don’t think he’ll give it to you if you ask nicely.”
Sam’s hands shivered with a giddy mix of fear and excitement. She took a deep breath and steadied them. “We’ll get it off him.”
Greg arched an eyebrow. “And how do you expect to do that exactly?”
“With a little help from your friends.”
* * *
Lester glared at Sam. “Three times? You failed the test three times?”
Sam reached for her records and sent two sheets spotty with ink stains fluttering to the floor. “Something must be wrong with my process.”
“I should think that much is obvious, don’t you?”
The scene had gathered a good number of eyeballs. Many weren’t facing their direction, but the attention was still on them, watching but pretending they weren’t, perversely enjoying someone else getting the blame. In any other research center, such shoddy work would have turned her beetroot red. But not today. Inwardly, Sam smiled. Good.
Lester leaned in close, the scent of his aftershave so thick it made her gag. At least someone is getting perks down here. “Do the test again, and this time, do it right.” He turned away for dramatic effect. “Get back to work!” he snapped at a gawping researcher.
Sam retrieved a fresh tray for her samples and placed it on the worktop.
Greg finished his conversation with another researcher and limped to his workstation.
“Well?” Sam said. “What did they say?”
“You didn’t give me much time.”
“Next time, you humiliate yourself in front of the other scientists while your buddy goes to get information from his friends.”
Greg stiffened. “You could have done. . . if you had any friends.”
“Then it’s good we did it my way.” Sam grinned. “Isn’t it?”
Greg shot a look at her out the corner of his eye. “I hate you.”
“So? What did they say?”
Greg checked over his shoulders. “They’re making an escape attempt. Tonight.”
“Who?”
“A few of them. It’s hard to tell. They’re not as sedate as they appear. I get the feeling they’ve been working on it for some time now. In exchange, they wanted to know my plan and why it failed. I told them. They didn’t look concerned, so I guess their escape is different from mine.”
Hope sprung in Sam’s chest. “They told you their plan?”
“I didn’t ask. They wouldn’t have told me anyway. It wouldn’t help us.”
Sam felt nettled. “It might help. A little.”
“It won’t because we’re not going to be escaping with them.”
“I thought we were going to escape?”
“We are, by piggybacking off their escape. It might provide us with a distraction.”
Sam shook her head in awe. “You’d throw your friends under the bus like that?”
“I’m not throwing them. They’re throwing themselves.”
Sam snorted. “I don’t get it. I watched you the whole time. You didn’t tap code once.”
“Some people tap code, others use different means to communicate.”
“Like what? I didn’t see you do anything.”
“Then you weren’t watching.” Greg performed an odd little gesture, a flutter of the hand like a bird taking flight.
It took a moment for Sam to understand what he was inferring. “You speak sign language?”
Greg shrugged. “I have an interesting family. I don’t think there’s a single debilitating disease someone in my family doesn’t have. I have a deaf aunt and a deaf-mute cousin. The whole family learned to talk with them, otherwise, they were trapped in their own worlds, all alone.”
“How do we know they won’t get in the way of our escape?”
“We don’t.”
Sam shook her head. “This plan of yours leaves very much to be desired.”
“I do know one thing. They’ll make their attempt one hour after we return to our rooms tonight. After that, all bets are off.”
“How do we get out of our rooms?”
Greg grinned. “Leave that to me. It’s the one part of my plan that worked like a charm. They still haven’t figured it out. You just focus on getting that key from the Architect.”
“All I can do is ask my source.”
“I hope you trust him.”
“About as much as I trust anybody in this place.”
Greg smiled. “Great answer.”
* * *
Sam’s new guard poked her with his truncheon like a farmer with a cattle prod. Sam entered the shower stall and he slammed the door in her face. He gave her no extra time for her shower, near beating the door down while she dried herself off.
“I’ll be out in a minute!” she said.
The hammering continued.
“I said—”
Bang bang bang bang bang.
Sam growled and hastily slipped on her clothes. She shoved the door open, hoping to smack Cauliflower in the nose. She grunted with disappointment when she found he was out of harm’s way.
He pointed at the washbasin and tapped his watch. “Two minutes.”
Sam t
ook her time and walked to the wash basin—a victory, no matter how small, was still a victory. She now had less than a minute to brush her teeth. The draughty corridor blew her damp clothes to her body and made her shiver. Some victory.
“Time’s up,” Cauliflower said, tapping his watch.
Sam spat the toothpaste out and rinsed her mouth. I’ll be so glad to leave this place. And this asshole.
Then he frog-marched her down the windy corridors back to her room. Sam heaved a sigh of relief when she found herself alone. She took a moment to calm herself.
One hour after we return to our rooms, Greg said. That’s when they’ll make their escape.
She drifted to the wall that provided the best connection to her friend Felix. “Are you there? Felix? Are you there?”
She waited for a response but none came. She bent down to knock again.
“What? I was sleeping.”
“I have to ask you a question.”
“Can it wait?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“This is the problem with having friends. They always come asking for something eventually. What do you want? I’m fresh out of sugar.”
“A while ago you mentioned the Architect and the key he wears.”
“Yeah. So?”
Sam took a deep breath. “So, where does he put it when he’s not wearing it?”
“How should I know?”
Sam’s hopes shrank. “I thought you knew about him?”
“No one knows about him. He’s a phantom who popped into existence.”
“You must know something. Where are his rooms? Where does he sleep?”
“The first time I heard about the elevator was when you mentioned it.”
“But you mentioned he probably goes to the surface often.”
“That was supposition. I have no evidence to back it up.”
“But you were right. What other suppositions do you have?”
“I can tell you he doesn’t live on our side of the facility. He doesn’t live on the north side either. If I had to put my money on it, I’d say he lives south or south-west. And that’s from our current location.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because of the direction he comes in and leaves at. He never comes in from the north side and never leaves in that direction either. It’s always from the south or west. It’s not very scientific, but there it is.”
Death Squad (Book 3): Zombie Nation Page 14