She helped him up to his feet and he gave a bitter grunt when she told him his walking stick had been broken in the scuffle. And how he had to find a new one.
"What were you doing out here?" he demanded.
"I just went out for a little walk. I must've fallen asleep," she said, rubbing her groggy eyes as if her body had woken up that morning before her brain did.
"Well can you help me get back, then?" he asked. "I don't even know which direction I'm facing anymore."
It may have been the first time he ever actually asked her for help, but she had too much on her mind to take any notice of it.
"Can you find a new walking stick for me?" he asked.
Sarah's head was already running a mile a minute as she walked back to the cabin. "Maybe later," she said. "I have to head out and do a couple things today."
That same bitter look she'd seen a lot lately crept over Wayne's face. "Oh, you must be off again with Ron today," he said, his voice dripping with the same childish contempt that she had come to know from him lately."
"I have to go, okay?" she snapped, feeling herself get frustrated. "I'll help you later when I get back."
"You know what? Don't worry about it," he said. "You go off and do whatever it is you want to do, and I'll take care of myself from now on. I don't need anyone at all."
This dug under Sarah's skin more than anything and she felt so enraged at his boorish and disrespectful attitude, especially after all she had done for him. "Fine," she said. "Have it your way." As soon as she dropped him off at the cabin, she didn't say another word to him and gathered her things, preparing to head to the lab.
She felt a sense of utter rage and bitterness toward him the entire way, but it was juxtaposed with another feeling just as strong; she wanted so badly to tell him that the reason she wanted him to stop acting this way and for her to stop watching him self-destruct was because she loved him.
But she just couldn't bring herself to say the words.
9
THE SECOND ITEM
She came back to the lab only a day after she and Trevor had retrieved the first item to finish the project. Now that they were near the end, they moved at a quick pace, and when Sarah headed in there today, she saw the scientists working at a fever pitch. Ron was buzzing about, supervising the others, and he began telling her about the second item he needed her to acquire. She expected to head out again with Trevor, but Ron informed her that he was out on a scouting mission at the moment and that she would have to go and retrieve the item by herself.
He personally saw her out to the woods and handed her a flash drive, telling her there was a military outpost fashioned in an old community center at the edge of Raleigh where Glass had stationed some of his men. He told her there would be a laptop there with files on it; files and databases that used to belong to the scientists back when they first developed their cure and were on the verge of their miraculous medical breakthrough when Glass's men cleaned them out and nearly slaughtered them. Ron wanted the files back, saying they were the true Rosetta Stone to being able to finish the project—the result of years of research—and there was a passionate fire in his eyes that was unusual for Sarah to see. But she knew how serious he was about this and how close they were all coming to that sweet finish, and she told him she wouldn't let him down.
As she traveled through the woods, she looked down at the set of directions Ron had given her, then she ran the flash drive around over her fingers, feeling the weight of the tiny and obsolete device.
It took her a couple hours to get there, following landmarks he had written out for her, but there was no mistaking it when she saw the building at the edge of an urban area in the once-populated city, with two armed men in their trademark black armor patrolling around on the roof of the building.
The parking lot of the community center was surrounded with sandbags and walls of barbed wire stretching over top of them. The building itself had all its windows smashed out, and Sarah could faintly see movement around in the dim interior from her vantage point. To one side of the building lay the street and the other clusters of stores nearby, and on the other side of the building there was a wild juxtaposition of a tall, weedy field and the edge of a wooded area next to it.
The rest of the street appeared to be empty, and Sarah took the time to survey the building. She spotted no more than four men on the outside, including the two on the roof, and only a couple, she figured, inside. It was unclear what the purpose of their outpost was, but she knew what her objective was: get in, plug the flash drive into the laptop and let the executable run, then get out with the information, by any means necessary.
Sarah skirted around the neighborhood, keeping her eyes glued to the outpost and the troops' movements. She went around until she reached the woods, using the shade and cover of the trees as well as the opposing angle to plan her assault.
The guards appeared to be pretty easy-going; the ones patrolling outside had their helmets off—probably too hot in the rising heat of early summer—and only two out of the four men patrolling outside had their weapons on them. The two who had a vantage point on the roof were dangerous, but if Sarah could get close enough to the building and take out the two on the ground first, it looked like this would be a quick snatch and grab.
One of the guards on the roof sauntered over to the corner of the building and stared off down the street for the fiftieth time. He hated pulling shifts like this and wished he was stationed elsewhere, but these were the boss's orders. He suddenly spun around and nudged his partner on the shoulder.
"What?"
"I'll be back in a minute. I have to take a leak."
"Sure."
The soldier, who still had his assault rifle on him, threw it over his back as he climbed down the ladder facing the woods and headed over to the tree line.
As soon as he felt the shade of the canopies overhead cover him, he let out a sigh of relief, glad to have a reprieve from the baking sun. He found a nearby tree and undid a small flap in the front of his armor. He held his member in his hand and felt the stream jet out against the tree, providing him with immediate relief. He let out a long, happy sigh, brushing his other hand through his hair. He shook it off and put it back in his pants and covered himself with the flap again. He intended to turn back and return to his guard post, but he never made it, and the other soldiers never saw him again.
The second soldier on the roof stood where his partner had, looking down the same stretch of road and feeling just as bored. Now that his partner mentioned it, he kind of had to take a leak himself, but he would wait until he got back. A few more minutes passed, and his partner still didn't return. He cocked a suspicious eye toward the woods, holding his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, trying to see where his partner went. Despite the vantage point, he couldn't spot him anywhere in the woods from up here.
He walked to the edge of the roof and bent over, spotting one of the men on the ground outside the building. "Hey Ray, you see where Dilly went?"
"Dilly?"
"Yeah, he went to take a piss in the woods a couple minutes ago. You think he got lost or something?"
The soldier down below shrugged. "Dilly's a fuck up. For all I know, yeah. He's probably taking a shit or something."
The soldier on the roof chuckled then he similarly tossed his rifle over his back and descended the ladder. By the time he reached the bottom, he turned around to say something else to Ray, but he was gone. He looked around, suddenly getting the feeling that it was a lot quieter than it was even just five minutes ago.
"...the fuck is everyone?" he muttered under his breath. He walked up to one of the windows in the community center and poked his head in. Three men were hanging around in the gymnasium, two of them playing cards, and the last one looking at porn on the laptop in the corner.
"What do you want?" one of them asked.
He leaned his arms on the open windowsill. "I want your fuckin' job, that's what I want. You bastar
ds get to sit in the shade all day."
"Well, shit!" one of them said, throwing down an ace as the other one grumbled.
"Whatever," the soldier mumbled as he backed out of the window and walked around. His eyes scanned the woods, but he decided to take a peek around the building first. He walked to the nearest corner and rounded it to the back of the community center, and if he would have been two seconds quicker, he might have spotted the pair of lifeless legs being dragged behind the next corner.
But he heard a scraping noise and he paused. He started to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he pulled the rifle off his back and cradled it in his arms. He eyed the next corner of the building ahead with suspicion, approaching it very slowly.
When he reached it, his heart hammered in his chest, and his finger wrapped around the trigger on his gun. And then, with a deep breath and a burst of courage, he shuffled out from around the corner and aimed his gun down the long side of the community center.
There was nothing there but the empty street next to it. He took a few steps back and looked up at the roof, but he couldn't see anything. "What the hell?"
He turned around in a huff and marched back toward the other side of the building. He was going to go take a look in the woods, and if he didn't find Dilly in there, he was going to alert the guys inside, maybe even call for backup if he had to. He didn't know what kind of shit was going on, but it was getting on his nerves real fast.
But as he passed the back of the building next to a dumpster, he stopped, suddenly feeling a horrible pain in his throat. He tried to clear his throat, but that made the pain even worse, feeling like his windpipe was tearing itself apart. He felt the blood rise up his throat and couldn't hold back a cough as he spit out a mouthful of crimson onto the pavement in front of him. He reached behind his neck and felt the blade sticking into the back of it. It suddenly retracted and then he felt the same white-hot, searing pain stretch across his throat, and suddenly a very warm feeling enveloped his entire neck and poured down into his armor as his legs became weak and gave out, causing him to fall to his knees and then tip over into a lifeless clump as his last sight on this earth was the dirty and gritty pavement an inch away from his eyes.
"Did you guys hear that?" the soldier looking at porn on the laptop asked.
The other two men stopped their argument long enough to ask him what he was going on about.
"Outside," he said. "You guys didn't hear that?"
"Them tits are making you go batty," one of the card players said.
"No, I'm serious! It sounded like... not a scream, but something like a cry for help. You guys should check it out."
"Horseshit," one of them said as he grimaced and threw down a two of clubs.
"Hey, all I got is this little rat popper," the man at the laptop said, holding up his .22 Ruger."
"Then maybe get yourself a better gun, dipshit."
"Come on guys, I'm serious."
One of the soldiers playing cards sighed and threw down the rest of his hand. "Fine." He tapped his partner on the arm who gave him an unconvinced look before he, too, relented. They both stood up from the flimsy table and took their rifles with them, exiting through the green doors of the gymnasium and heading through the hallway to get to the parking lot.
The doors swung closed, leaving only the one man in the building. He turned his attention back to the laptop, but the naked girls just didn't do anything for him anymore. He closed the pictures and sat there, turning on his chair around to look at the rest of the hall. His eyes nervously darted from one window to the next, catching flashes of movement, only to realize it was just the trees swaying in the wind. Time ticked away, though he had no clock with him, so what felt like hours to him could have been only a few seconds. He became antsy sitting there in his little fold-up chair, and finally he shot up to his feet and timidly walked over to one of the windows. He leaned out and looked around, seeing nothing but the empty side of the building. He pulled his head back inside and just stared at the buildings across the street for a moment. He turned around and started across the hall for one of the windows on the other side.
Suddenly a body was flung halfway through the window in front of him, the corpse bent over backwards with its torso and arms flailing inside as the blood ran down its outstretched arms and dripped off its fingertips onto the hardwood floor.
The man screamed and snatched up his .22 Ruger. He pointed it over the dead man's body and then started to spin around, his mind racing. He trotted for the set of doors leading toward the exit, but just before he got to them, he stopped, thinking it would be a better idea to call for help. He wheeled around and screamed again.
Sarah stood in front of him between him and the table with the laptop where he left his SINCGARS communicator.
His frantic instincts took over him and he threw his arm up and aimed the little .22 at her.
But she was faster. She aimed the Sig Sauer and blew off his jaw with one round, causing him to stagger around on the spot looking like a bloody mess before falling to his knees. He writhed on the ground and tried to open his mangled jaw to breathe, and Sarah walked up to him and put him out of his misery, drilling another round in his head.
Now that the outpost was cleared out, she walked over to the laptop that was sitting on the operating system's desktop and she put the flash drive into the side of it. She never knew much about computers, but Ron assured her that the process was foolproof and would take care of itself. When the prompt for the executable came up, she clicked yes on it and watched the progress bar pop up on the screen, followed by a series of filenames that the computer ran through. The progress bar was slow to complete but she knew she had time.
Outside in the woods, Dilly dropped his communicator mounted to his backpack and let it fall out of his hand to the ground. He mustered just enough strength to send out the warning message back to base, then he spit out one last mouthful of blood before letting the icy cold grip of death take over him.
10
CIRCLING THE WAGONS
The download was painfully slow. The laptop screen didn't say how large the files were; it only gave a percentage. And it seemed to tick away one number a minute, but maybe she was just imagining it. As she waited for the download to finish, she wandered around the gymnasium, looking up and staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling. The floors were scuffed up and in severe disrepair, and she suddenly wondered when the last time someone used this place was... when the final basketball bounced against the once-polished surface?
She turned and headed toward a window, leaning against the sill and staring out at the bright and cheerful day as the blood pooled around the two dead bodies behind her.
The breeze picked up quite a bit and the crickets chirped busily as she watched the tall weeds in the field in front of her sway madly from side to side.
Then there was a noise, faint at first, that crept up in volume until it became louder than the crickets and even the breeze.
At first she couldn't place it, but then she had a sneaking suspicion what it was, and a chill ran through her. She turned and looked at the laptop screen to see how close it was to finishing, but it was only at fifteen percent.
"Damn it," she muttered as she went to another window and stared at the road. There was definitely someone coming, and as the noises got louder, it became apparent it wasn't just one vehicle.
Before long, three Humvees pulled up and surrounded the community center. The doors flew open and about a dozen soldiers in total came out with their guns raised.
She didn't know how the word got out; she was sure she dispatched everyone before they had a chance to signal for help.
And then she heard grunting from outside. She ran up to the window, pressing her body against the wall and peeking around the open frame.
The door in the back of one of the Humvees flew open and a huge leg came out from the dark interior. When the figure got out and stood up, Sarah felt her stomach twist into a p
retzel.
Kenny was here, and his dead, zombified eyes scanned the building and the surrounding area. If Sarah wasn't in such a hurry to get away from them, she may have wondered how odd it was that Kenny—now a zombie—seemed to stand in the presence of the other troops without attacking them. But if these new zombies had intelligence, including Kenny, maybe they had the ability to be reasoned with or coerced.
Sarah searched around the gymnasium. There was nowhere for her to hide, and her only options of escape were through one of the windows leading outside or the set of double doors heading into the hallway toward the rest of the community center. The troops outside quickly surrounded the entire building, keeping a watchful eye. As they began to mobilize, Sarah could see that some of them headed for the front entrance of the community center while others started to move toward the windows where she was.
"Shit!" she whispered, and she hurried and snatched up the laptop, quietly opening the doors and heading into the hallway. She knew the building wasn't that large and she would probably find herself with very few places to hide. In fact, hiding wasn't anything other than a short-term option; with how many men there were, it wouldn't take them long to do a full and thorough search of the building. She would have to find a way out, and she didn't think fighting would be a valid option this time... not when she was outnumbered like this. Not when Kenny was with them.
The hallway she was in stretched to the left and right, the right side ending just past the gymnasium doors and a set of washrooms that she didn't particularly want to hide in.
She heard the front doors of the community center open as heavy and hurried footfalls stormed in. It felt like leading herself right into the belly of the beast, but she ran to the left end of the hallway and around the corner which led to the entrance.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 6): The Eden Project Page 10