“I guess now we know why the door was sealed,” Allison said. “But since we’ve managed to get it open, we should take a look at the infirmary.”
“You and Ellen do that.” Jake stuck the cigarettes into his jacket pocket. “You, and you –” Jake pointed first at Nathan and then at Pete “ – and me are going to haul these corpses out of here.”
Pete lowered his camera from his eye. “What are we going to do with them?”
“We need to take them outside. We don’t want them stinking out the place. OK boys, let’s go. We can stack up the bodies in the tower.”
“Neeta, go keep an eye on Daniel,” said Ellen. “I don’t want to leave him unattended in case any more of those things turn up. Allison, you and I are going to check out the infirmary.”
“What if one of those things does turn up?” Neeta said nervously.
Ellen pointed at the shovel. “Take that as a weapon. And yell if you get into trouble. We’ll come after you.”
Neeta picked up the shovel and hurried off down the corridor to the barracks. Ellen and Allison picked their way past the fallen Nazi bodies to the infirmary.
Residual smoke from the blast still hung in the air. The rectangular room was twenty feet by thirty, with the concrete walls and floor typical of Nazi construction. There were deep indentations in the concrete in several places, as if something had hit it repeatedly. There were two hospital cots, both of which had been overturned. A metal shelf unit along one wall had also been overturned, but a cupboard mounted on the wall remained intact with its door closed.
“Wow. Did those things do all this?” Allison stood in the doorway, staring around.
Ellen slipped past her and cautiously stepped over the debris. “They were probably in here seventy years, trying to get out. Do you see the gouges in the walls?”
“So when the Nazis left they sealed those things in. What were they doing in here to begin with?” Allison asked.
Ellen paused as a pile of fabric on the floor caught her attention. She crouched down for a closer look. They were long tubular contraptions, looking a bit like sleeping bags but of a much thinner fabric. There were several of them, bunched into a careless pile. She picked one up. It had a zip running along the middle, and looked similar to the sort of covers that you get from the dry cleaners when you get a suit or a posh frock cleaned. With a start, Ellen suddenly realised what she was holding. She dropped it and jumped up, appalled. “They’re body bags!”
“What?”
“Look at these.” Ellen cautiously picked up a corner and peeled back the first, trying to count how many were in the pile. “One, two, three, four, five body bags. All dumped in a pile. There were five of those things out there. They were sealed in here when they were dead!”
“So whoever sealed the door knew they wouldn’t stay dead.” Allison stared at Ellen. “Just what the hell did the Nazis unearth here?”
Ellen crossed the room to the cupboard. “There’s got to be something we can use in here.” She rattled the door; it did not budge. “It’s locked, of course.” She ran a hand through her short curly hair in frustration and then looked at Allison’s hair, in its bun. When they’d boarded the plane Ellen had been impressed by how neat and together Allison had appeared. She always marvelled at women who managed to get their hair to behave; hers had always been wild and unruly, even as a child, which is why she kept it cut short. Allison no longer looked quite so neat and tidy; the events of the last forty-eight hours had left it dishevelled, strands of hair escaping from the pins. But she still had the pins in her hair.
“Give me one of your hair grips,” Ellen said.
Allison frowned and pulled a pin out of her hair. She handed it over. “What for?”
Ellen bent back the grip until it was as straight as she could get it. “Evidence of a misspent youth.” She set to work trying to pick the cupboard’s lock.
“Does that really work, then? I’ve only ever seen it on TV.”
“It used to.” The lock was old and stiff from lack of use. Ellen tried to still her shaking hand and poked the pin in the lock, forcing herself to be patient. She had to find the locking mechanism.
“So how did you learn to do that?”
“From my mother, actually.”
“Really?”
“Inadvertently. There was always a liquor cabinet in the house, but once upon a time nobody ever touched it unless we had guests or it was Christmas. Then my brother died, and after that my mother started drinking. More and more. My father got worried about her and put all the booze into a lockable cabinet and took the key to work with him. She used to unlock the cabinet with a hair pin. She didn’t know I was watching her do it. She would swig the booze and make sure it was all locked away again before my dad got home from work.”
“He must have noticed the level in the bottles going down,” Allison said.
“He did, after a while. Then there was no booze in the house. But she wasn’t under house arrest and she would still acquire it. She died, five years ago, of cirrhosis of the liver.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was never really the same after my brother died. I think maybe her soul died then. She was just trying to get her body to follow it. Ah, I think I’ve got it.” There was a click. Ellen removed the pin and pulled on the cupboard door. It swung open.
The cupboard was full of pill bottles, all of which seemed to be remarkably well preserved. Ellen read out labels. “Penicillin. Valium. Aspirin. Sulphapyridine, what’s that?”
“I can’t believe any of this stuff will be any good.”
“We said that about the food, and it was all OK.” Ellen scooped two bottles of penicillin out of the cupboard. “Maybe it’s something to do with that machine that preserves things somehow.”
“And we don’t know if that thing is safe,” Allison said.
“Without antibiotics Daniel’s infected leg might kill him.” Ellen took the aspirin and the Valium from the cupboard and stuffed everything into her pockets. “What have we got to lose at this point?”
CHAPTER 27
Out in the corridor, the operation of removing the bodies of the undead Nazis was just finishing up. Jake, Nathan and Pete were carting the last one away. Ellen stared at the mess of black ichor and gore that muddied the corridor floor. She picked her way carefully back to the comms room and then beyond it into the kitchen. She dumped all the bottles of pills from the infirmary onto the table and put on water to boil.
Neeta entered the kitchen as Allison was lining up mugs. “The British solution to any problem,” she said, smiling faintly. “A cup of tea can cure all ills.”
“How’s Daniel?” Ellen asked.
“No change. I’ve given him more pain killers, but we’re running low. I’m not sure what we’ll do when we run out.”
“As it happens, we’ve just found some more.” Ellen indicated the bottles on the table.”
“It’s not possible they’ll still be good after all this time,” Neeta said.
“There are a lot of impossible things going on,” Ellen said. “Food that’s still perfectly preserved after seventy years. A machine that seems to be powered by something other than electricity. People who’ve been dead for seventy years walking around.”
“But those things out there. They weren’t human.” Allison shuddered. “If people come back from the dead, they come back wrong.”
“So if these things are not human what are they?” asked Neeta. “Zombies?”
“Hey, we’re dealing with uncharted territory here. Last week I would have laughed off the idea of zombies,” said Ellen. “They can’t possibly exist. But now, here we are dealing with impossible things.”
Allison smiled grimly. “You have to believe in impossible things before breakfast.”
Neeta frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s from a Lewis Carroll book. Alice Through the Looking Glass. ‘You have to believe in six impossible things before breakfast’. I
t was my favourite book, as a child. I still have a beaten-up old copy on my bookshelf at home, hidden somewhere behind all the books on business management and breaking the glass ceiling and feminist theory. It’s been years since I read it.”
Ellen picked up the bottle of penicillin. “I’m going to take this to Daniel.”
Allison stared at Ellen so intently that Ellen felt prompted to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“I just had a thought,” Allison said. “If the machine preserves things and brings people back from the dead, maybe it will heal Daniel’s leg.”
“And we don’t know nearly enough about that thing,” Ellen said. “What if it turns him into one of those zombie creatures?”
“You said yourself that if gangrene sets in he’ll die. It might be worth a shot if we can save him.”
“I think I’d rather try the penicillin first.” Ellen hurried down the corridor to the bunk room in which Daniel still lay. He was engrossed in a book when Ellen walked in, and she realised it was the personal journal they had found in one of the lockers. He put it down when she entered and looked at her expectantly. “So have you come to tell me what’s going on? I heard blasts, and gun shots, and yelling. It’s been driving me crazy stuck back here not able to see what is happening.”
Ellen took a deep breath. “We blasted the door off the infirmary. Five things came out.”
“Things? What kind of things?”
“They were wearing Nazi uniforms. Human looking, but somehow not human. Aggressive, monstrous things. Jake shot at them. Initially they kept on coming but they went down when he got them in the head. They had been dead and locked up in the infirmary. The door was sealed because someone knew they were going to come back. The room looked like they’d spent years trying to get out.”
“They came back from the dead. Like David did,” Daniel said.
“We’re starting to wonder if it has something to do with that machine. You said they were researching how to preserve things. What if the Nazis invented something so good at preserving things, they were able to bring things back from the dead?”
“It’s entirely possible. I’ve learned a few more things about what they were up to from this journal. It’s a personal journal of one of the Nazis. A lot of it is about ordinary stuff. He grumbles about being sent to such a cold inhospitable place, away from his parents, away from his girlfriend. Sounds like he was a young man. Then he starts talking about the experiments they were doing. He hints at something dark and unnatural. Something paranormal.”
Ellen shuddered as a chill ran through her although she didn’t feel cold. “What did they find?”
“I haven’t got that far yet. But I wouldn’t rule out the earlier suggestion of something supernatural.”
Ellen paused. “We’re wondering if the machine might help you.”
“In what way?”
“Your leg. It’s infected. If the machine can preserve things and even bring people back from the dead, maybe it can heal you.”
“And it might kill me, or worse. Turn me into some hideous raging beast.”
“Yes, that has occurred to me too.” Ellen produced the bottles of penicillin. “I found this in the infirmary.”
“It’ll be useless now. It’s seventy years old.”
“We thought that about the food. And it was fine.”
“We think it was fine. But we all ate it, so if anything awful is going to happen because of it, it will happen to all of us.” Daniel sighed. “OK, leave me the pills. This leg will kill me anyway if it doesn’t get treated.”
“Do you want a cup of tea with them?”
Daniel smiled grimly. “What is it with you Brits? The world is ending, and your reaction is to make a cup of tea.”
“That’s just what Neeta said. It’s a cultural reflex. As long as there’s tea, there’s still hope.”
“In that case, a cup of tea would be nice. Thank you.”
“I’ll be right back.” Ellen left the room.
CHAPTER 28
A short time later, they all sat around the table in the refectory. They were drinking tea but the grim expressions on faces belied the seriousness of the conversation. Daniel had been brought out from the bunk room, his leg propped up on an empty chair. The smell of rotten flesh it emitted had been overpowering when he had first been brought in. Now they had all been here a while it seemed less bad, but maybe it was because they were getting accustomed to it, Ellen mused, as is the way with smells.
In the middle of the table was the map of the base.
“So now we know why those corridors are sealed up,” Nathan said. “If we open them up, we’ll release more of those Nazi zombies and they’ll tear us to pieces. If we don’t, we starve or freeze to death on this base because we can’t radio for help and eventually we’ll run out of food.”
“It will take a while before we run out of food,” Allison said. “There’s a lot of stuff in the pantry that’s still good. If we are careful with rationing, it could last months.”
“But we’re eating stuff that’s been supernaturally preserved and might eventually turn us into zombies anyway,” Nathan said.
“We don’t know that,” Ellen pointed out.
Nathan stared at her. “We know fuck all about this place, that’s the problem.”
“Listen people,” Jake said. “We do have some options. Look here.” He pointed at the map. “There’s a weapons store marked here, in the north corridor. There could be all sorts of good stuff there. Next to it there’s a supplies cupboard. According to Daniel’s translation, this is marked ‘electronics storage’. There could be a radio in there. Or if not, there might be the parts we need to fix the radio in the comms room. So I propose we access this corridor to get to these areas. We also need to get to the hangar. There might be a plane there that’s still flyable.”
“And what if there is?” Nathan demanded. “How are we going to get to it? You’re proposing unsealing that corridor, that’s probably crawling with Nazi zombies.”
“The weapons we need to deal with them are in that corridor.” Jake stabbed at the map.
“But the zombies will take us out before we get to them.”
“Not necessarily,” said Ellen. “Jake and I took out the ones in the infirmary, with his pistol, a knife and a shovel.”
“We deal with the corridor first,” Jake said. “And any hostiles that happen to be in there. We stock up on weapons and then we check out that hangar.”
“What about the lift?” said Allison.
“We’ve already established it doesn’t work,” Jake said. “And we don’t know yet what’s down there. We’d be better off climbing down the shaft.”
“Do we have enough rope?”
“It’s best to send someone small and lightweight.” Jake looked Ellen up and down. “A petite chick like you, for instance.”
“We don’t know what’s on the lower level,” Nathan said. “For all we know, the hangar’s crawling with zombies.”
“So we get the weapons first.” Jake pointed at Ellen. “You’re on demolition duty with me, babe. We made a good team last time. The rest of you, gather up any weapons you can find.”
“We haven’t got any weapons,” Nathan said. “Not apart from your military-issue pistol.”
“There’s a shot gun,” Allison said. “Amongst the kit. I insisted it was part of the inventory, in case we met any hostile wildlife.”
“That still seems a meagre weapons count, considering there are seven of us,” said Nathan.
“Be creative,” Jake said. “We’ve got tools. Shovels and pickaxes. Climbing spikes and crampons. Knives. Anything sharp or pointed can be used as a weapon if need be.”
Nathan scowled. “I still think this is a stupid plan. We’re all going to die.”
“Your objection is noted.” Jake pulled a box of bullets out of his belt pouch and reloaded his pistol.
“But you’re ignoring it, is that it?”
“I think Jake’s plan
is a good one,” Allison said. “Get the weapons first. Even if we have to deal with more of those undead things to get to them.”
“Maybe we should take a vote,” Neeta said. “That’s the civilised way to deal with it.”
Jake glared at her. “This is a survival situation. It’s not a democracy.”
“It won’t hurt to get a majority view.” Allison looked around the group. “All in favour of Jake’s plan to blast open the corridor to get to the weapons, raise your hands.” She raised her own hand, in sync with Jake and Ellen raising theirs. Daniel’s hand followed and then Pete’s. After a pause, Neeta timidly raised her own hand. Only Nathan kept both hands on the table.
“So that’s six out of seven,” Allison said.
Nathan shook his head. “Don’t come crawling to me when you’re all being eaten by zombies. Because I will be the one that survives. Make no mistake.”
CHAPTER 29
Ellen, carrying the shotgun, approached the pile of makeshift weapons that had been piled up in the corridor by the barracks rooms. Jake gouged holes in the concrete wall that blocked the passageway, just opposite the officers’ quarters. He then affixed explosives to various points. He glanced around as Ellen approached and flashed her a grin. “This is going to be a big kaboom.”
“Just don’t bring the base down on top of us.” Ellen carefully propped the shotgun against the wall. She glanced down the corridor, towards the barracks room and the kitchen, where the others were hiding behind doors, with strict instructions not to come out until the explosion had happened.
Jake paused. “Come over here and listen to this.”
“Listen to what?” Ellen moved closer.
“Put your ear to this block.” Jake moved aside.
Ellen, puzzled, approached the concrete block and put her ear up against it. On the other side she heard shuffling noises. Low growls. A rhythmic banging noise that reverberated through the floor. She could feel it under her feet. She moved back and frowned at Jake. “More Nazis.”
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