Z-Boat (Book 2): Z-Topia

by Suzanne Robb

  * * *

  Ally crept up the stairs, a different kind of stench wafting toward her. She unlatched the entry to the second floor and peered in. Her bio-scan revealed one warm body, and one close to room temperature in the same area. Someone on the verge of turning.

  Moving faster she went to the room, opened the door, and fired without thought. The man fell to the ground, the back of his skull escaping through the front of his face. He crumpled to the floor, pants tripping up his ankles. She took note of the necklace he wore, a collection of index fingers.

  The sight before her didn’t need explanation. The woman who’d tried to warn them earlier was tied to a wooden post, a mattress crusted with blood and other things below her.

  “My name’s Ally, I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Tears and quiet sobs were the only answer she received. She tried not to think about the fact the woman had been exposed to the bacteria and would need to be put down. For now Ally let her enjoy a few moments of freedom.

  “Is there anyone else up here?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lana.”

  “Okay, Lana, I’m going to check out the rest of this floor and see if there’s anything we can salvage. Then I’ll come back and get you.”

  Lana moved herself into the corner of the room and curled into a ball, chest heaving the entire time with sobs. Anger grew inside Ally, and she hoped she found something to let it out on. She searched the other rooms with military precision. A few weapons, some electrical components, and an encoded display panel still in is wrapper.

  “Lana, let’s go.”

  The woman rose in increments, pain evident in her every move. They made their way downstairs and entered the main area. Richards had the group split into two and for a second she thought a look of relief crossed his face when she appeared.

  “Take her, I’ll clear the floor.”

  “How’d you—”

  “I might hate you, but you were a good teacher once.”

  Ally walked away and stood in a dark area. Using the bio-scanner she didn’t see any hiding bodies, at least of the warm variety. One spot caught her eye and she moved in to investigate.

  Opening the door to the control room Ally saw a man on the floor. His body twitched every few seconds and before she had a chance to draw her weapon the thing was on her. The force of hitting the wall knocked the breath out of her and caused the gun to fall to the ground. Her bruised and broken ribs screamed in protest.

  Teeth snapped at her face and came mere millimeters from chomping her nose. She pushed with all her might, but this sucker was new and stronger than her.

  “I hope to hell you’re not like that other one.”

  She took in a deep breath despite the pain it caused and reached down with her left hand for anything she could use as a weapon as her right arm was wedged under the thing’s neck.

  A small plastic item, from the feel of it, was within her grasp. As fingers wrapped around it the zombie pulled back, an unexpected move. With a few feet in-between them Ally tried to figure out what the hell was going on. It moved to the door keeping eye contact with her the whole time.

  The damned thing was making sure she couldn’t escape. Crap, it was another one of the smart ones. She was as good as dead. The room was dark and a few sparks shot out of various wires, but nothing worthwhile.

  A large cable in the back with several warning signs and pictures of people with lightning bolts through them caught her attention. Moving back with measured steps she placed herself below what must have been one of the main power lines for the station.

  As hoped, the thing followed her, a guttural plea for flesh escaping its maw. Ally pulled out her gun, made sure her knife was within reach, and waited. Seconds later it stood two feet in front of her eying the weapons.

  “Come on you ugly bastard.”

  The zombie tilted its head and oily hands grabbed her shoulders. She felt the vicelike grip and had seconds to kick her brain into action.

  The sound of drywall breaking and the plume of dust kicked up by the zombie’s head crashing through the wall were the only indication she moved her head in time. While it was still dazed she reached up and wrapped the hand it had gripping her left shoulder. She unsheathed her knife and maneuvered herself into position.

  When it pulled its head out a large dent was visible down the center of its face. Must have hit a stud, good luck for her. She jammed the knife through the hand she freed and kept pushing it up until it lodged into the thick power cable.

  The jolt knocked her clear across the room, adding a few more injuries to the growing list. Lights flickered and an alarm of some kind went off. In the back the zombie let out some sort of noise as it shook. Before it had time to yank its hand free it burned from the inside out. Ally covered her face with her hand as the aroma of rotten, burnt flesh soaked the air.

  When the shaking subsided she went over and shot it through both eyes. The green ooze she’d come to associate with these things was absent, instead a purple substance dribbled from the wounds. She didn’t like this new development and kicked the body until it fell.

  She grabbed her knife and wiped it clean, for some reason she felt an affinity for it since it saved her ass so many times. The corpse at her feet was something new. Might be from firm experimentation, or could be some sort of mutation. Either way, she needed to make sure it was dead. Several more shots through the mouth and ears and all that remained was a pulpy mess.

  Time to go and get the survivors sorted out and make sure Joseph and the others were still alive.

  * * *

  Richards resisted the urge to go after Ally when he heard the gunfire. The group he separated was acting strange—enough reason for him to stay put. He reached down into the box and grabbed the thinnest wires he could of adequate length.

  As the lights sparked and winked on and off he caught sight of something along the upper walls. Dozens of heads were stuck there like one of those old fashioned hunters’ dens. These people were nuts. The country really was going to hell. He wondered if there was any hope for them or if they were fighting a lost cause.

  “Hey, get the freaky looking ones tied up.”

  Richards jumped at the voice so close to his ear. “Damn it, Ally.”

  Ally picked up some wires and went over to those gathered on the right. One of them stood.

  “You aren’t tying me up. Move along, lady.”

  Ally cocked her head then smacked the guy across the face so hard four of his teeth clattered against the wall on the opposite side of the room. He crumpled to his knees and Ally tied his wrists to his ankles in under twenty seconds.

  Richards came over and met no resistance from the others. Ally held her weapon on them, which made him feel better.

  “You might want to check them, kinda hard to do with a broken arm.”

  Ally nodded and pulled all of the knots tighter. Several grunts were heard, but no verbal complaints.

  “You should take a look along the upper area of the room,” he said in a casual voice.

  She glanced up and smiled. “I wondered about that, didn’t see any heads in the pile outside. Interesting, wondered what happened to them.”

  Interesting? Definitely not the same woman he knew, and that was a good thing right now.

  “Is the front area clear? Can we open the door and let in the others?” Richards asked those they deemed safe.

  All heads nodded, too afraid to speak. He went ahead and opened it, then used his flashlight to signal the others. Seconds later Joseph, Hunter, and Trevor piled into the building.

  “Took your sweet time,” Joseph sneered.

  “Hey, you have no idea what the hell we had to deal with in here so shut the hell up.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do—”

  “Boys, come on, we have work to do,” Ally said from behind them.

  Chapter Eighteen—

  Ally swallo
wed a Morphoid, the pain in her chest much too distracting at the moment. She couldn’t let something like an injury slow her down, not with these new zombies popping up. She sat with the group they deemed least likely to change and eat them, with one exception: Lana. Ally would keep an eye on her, it would be easy since all the woman did was sit in the corner rocking back and forth.

  “All right, I need to know which of you know how to operate the control room well enough to get us on air.”

  A pasty-faced, thin young man with a shaved head and spectacles raised his hand. “Um, I can get it going if Evan helps me.” He nodded at another man who was tied up.

  Ally debated a moment then nodded. “Hunter, you help Evan into the control room with…?”

  The man sputtered, “Larry, call me Larry.”

  “With Larry. Get them set up and keep an eye on things.” She hoped Hunter understood her meaning when she arched an eyebrow at the guy they were about to untie.

  Ally searched the floor for where they did newscasts, but found nothing. No room. No desk. No back screen.

  “Where do you guys report from?”

  An obese woman with a black dress and frizzy hair answered, “You did notice the world’s gone to hell right? We lost our satellite on the second day, since then we’ve been doing old school radio broadcasts. Only the larger centers have video satellite ability.”

  Ally shook her head. “But the man we met when we came in told us he was making shows on how to…”

  “Skin a zombie?”

  Ally nodded.

  “You might have noticed, but he wasn’t quite right. The first technician to tell him we didn’t have a satellite feed lost an ear. We decided to humor him after that.”

  “Stop it, you’re wasting time. I can fix the access issue. Take me to the control room,” Joseph ordered.

  Ally walked with him and wondered at his change in attitude. Was she becoming paranoid? Did she see ill intentions where there were none? Joseph moved with purpose, like a man hungry to solve a problem, like a man who wanted to save the world. She shook her head of the irrational thoughts and chalked it up to stress and fatigue.

  She entered the control room first, and Hunter blocked the door so it would remain open. Larry twisted things together and tested others with some sort of square device beeping on occasion. Evan bitched at Hunter to move pieces of debris and press buttons of varying color in a certain order. Ally didn’t care for Evan’s attitude and kept a close eye on him.

  “Where is the command panel? The one only your boss had access to,” Joseph asked in a clipped tone.

  “It’s over there in the corner.” Larry pointed. “But you need a special key and retinal scan to access it, otherwise it’ll blow the main circuit.”

  Joseph ignored the warning as he pulled a thin piece of metal out of his pocket, two inches long and half an inch in diameter. He squeezed the ends and two different shaped bits popped out. He inserted it into a hidden side compartment and waited for the machine to scan his eyes.

  A loud hum could be heard and a few sparks shot off the wires. An image screen rose out of the flat part of the table and a digital face smiled.

  “Hello, Joseph Erdman, would you like to link your satellite to this location?” a computerized voice droned.

  “Yes, prepare for complete media broadcast on all channels, override code Gamma-Henry-Boy.”

  “You’re firm leader Erdman? Holy cow,” Larry said, his eyes wide.

  “Yes, you now have a satellite, let me know when it is ready for transmission.”

  Ally followed him out of the room wondering again if she was wrong about him. She felt like she’d been going all out for months. Her ribs ached, a headache was forming, she needed a good meal and some sleep. But still something about this didn’t sit right with her.

  “I need to clean up, I’ll be in the bathroom.”

  Ally nodded as she continued past him in thought. She entered the center room and eyed Trevor as he spoke with the individuals they’d separated from the group. Not good, knowing him he was trying to organize some sort of rebellion.

  “Trevor, where’s Richards?”

  “How the hell should I know, I’m not his babysitter.”

  “Whatever, be careful over there. They were hacking up zombies earlier and are covered in the bacteria. Take a look up as well. You might get some home décor ideas.”

  She smiled in satisfaction as he took a step back and swallowed when the heads came into view. Now to find Richards, where would he be? Not in the office, nothing to gain there. Bathroom?

  She knocked on the door and yelled out his name. An annoyed Joseph let her know he was alone. She grabbed the encrypted panel from her shoulder sack and decided to scan for any live signals, perhaps Richards was the one she should be doubtful of.

  The new panel lit up and asked for her information, she put in her current identity and waited for it to accept and link. Thirty seconds later a screen came to life alerting her to almost a dozen different signals in a half-mile radius. She narrowed the vector to a hundred feet and was left with two.

  One would be the satellite Joseph set up for transmission, but who was the other one? She zeroed in on it, finding someone transmitting from one of the storage rooms. Ally headed to the spot with caution. The connection registered as identical to hers, so she knew she was dealing with someone who had an untraceable encrypted device. When she heard a voice she stopped.

  “I don’t like it, get out of there.”

  Silence as they listened to someone.

  “Fine, but if this goes tits up, I can’t be there to help you. Please, listen to me. We backed the wrong guy.”

  More silence.

  “Damn it!”

  Ally glanced down and saw the connection had been severed from the other end. She wondered who he was talking to. A spy in the militia? A mole in Allgood’s organization? Whoever it was, he cared about them. That was unusual in and of itself. The frustration at his inability to protect them was not part of any of the personalities she’d seen him use in the past. Either way he was talking to someone and not sharing with the group.

  Joseph bellowed her name and she headed to him to avoid being caught. He stood there, clean shaven and smiling. He held his hands out in a “what do you think?” manner. A few cuts and tears, but the part that would go on camera was presentable. Considering most people were concerned with survival she didn’t think the small burn mark on his front sash would take away from whatever he’d come up with to try to calm people down and make them feel safe.

  Larry rounded the corner with a huge smile on his face. “We’re ready.”

  A door slammed and a disgruntled Richards walked over to them. He glanced at Ally but didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s go and get this over with. We have a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to beat Allgood.”

  * * *

  “Will you please pick something and stay with it? You’re making me nuts with all that signal surfing.”

  Dale sighed and was about to disable the receiver when something popped up and caught his attention. A satellite signal was broadcasting to all media outlets, cutting into all normal broadcasts. Only people who knew the override code could make that happen, and up until a minute ago all those people were dead.

  A familiar voice came through and he smashed his fist into the steering wheel causing the car to veer before it auto-corrected.

  “I know many of you thought I was dead, but as you can see I am alive and well. I also don’t have much time, so those of you listening take notes and pass it on to others. Dale Allgood is not who he claims to be, he doesn’t care if you live or die, in fact he wants more of you to bite the dust so he has fewer to take care of and less people to battle for control.”

  Dale turned up the volume and noticed Janelle sit up in her seat, a worried expression on her face.

  “I have proof he doesn’t care, messages, images, and other things. That will come later, for now I need you t
o protect yourselves. This disease, illness, epidemic, pandemic, whatever those around you are referring to it as, is serious. If you have no means of protection, stay away from those infected, wash off any fluids that get on you, and warn others who haven’t heard this. It’s the only way we will survive and make it through this, we must unite. We must act as one and look out for the world. I know you don’t trust me, but I have given up my post and as of now have no power or money.”

  Dale snickered, he was smart enough to keep his money. Then again if the whole world turned into zombies his cash would do him little good. Bastard Erdman knew how to rally the troops.

  “My time is short, so I leave you with this. Imagine a unified world, a place where people are seen as equal and treated as such. To make that happen we must gather together in order to defeat these things. Collect weapons, your strongest men and women, defend yourselves so we can claim victory.”

  The signal cut out and Dale tossed the display panel onto the console between him and the girl. So lost in his thoughts he missed her question.

  “What?” he snapped at her.

  “Is he telling the truth?”

  “What do you think? Do you think I’m an evil man that wants to rule the world?”

  Janelle leaned forward, gun leveled at his head. “I do think that, now answer my question.”

  Dale figured she was going to kill him either way, the frail look of a girl she once had disappeared. In front of him now was a hard, steely-eyed killer.

  “Part of what he said is true, but not all of it. I don’t want mass deaths on my hands, I have enough to tide me over. I just want to slip into the seat of power, and figured a time of crisis, no leadership, and a strange sickness rampaging across the planet was as good an opportunity as any to get what I wanted.”

  The gun lowered and he sagged in his seat. She seemed to be mulling something over in her head.