That sent him reeling. Death was all he could think about since this crisis started, but thoughts of death exploded after Victoria was shot. Spending a day riding with a group no younger than eighty also turned him inward and downward. He admitted he was scraping rock bottom on the zest-for-life scale, but he didn't consciously want to die. Far from it.
What answer did he expect? “I don't want to die. I don't know why I keep asking about it. I guess I'm nervous about my grandma. About my girlfriend being shot. About the death of our whole world.”
“That's a fair answer. None of us are having a good day. Not anymore.”
“It also doesn't help that I don't know what's going on. I see the pen with the two types of zombies, and I understand there are costs with the experiments you're running—even if I don't agree with your methods. But none of this tells me anything important about the disease, its origin, or how it can be stopped. I hear you about needing Grandma, but I want to make a difference too. I want to help save the world. I know that sounds corny coming from a fifteen-year-old...”
“I wish I could tell you more. I trust you more than I probably should. But I don't trust you enough to tell you anything that might jeopardize our project here. We know someone started this plague. Whether it was a single person, a small group, or a major government—we don't know. I can't take even the most minute chance you found your way here with the intention of helping them. Even accidentally.”
The colonel let that sit for a few minutes. Liam couldn't take his eyes off the pile of bodies in front of him. He imagined Victoria on the pile. Jones on the pile. Phil on the pile. His mom and dad.
Snap out of it!
With great effort, he made himself look away. “Can we go back now?”
“Yeah, this place isn't my favorite place to relax.”
They hadn't been on the return trail long when the sound of jets went screaming over their heads, very low. With all the foliage on the trees it was impossible to see them, but the colonel seemed to know who they were and what they were doing. “Before I met with you today, I was managing a crisis at another of our camps out in the sticks of Missouri. Those planes are going to eradicate the problem. Those Air Force boys and girls just love playing with their toys.”
“You mean they're going to destroy a camp just like this one?”
“Containment failed.”
And there it is.
Liam knew containment always failed. Always. Every book he could remember reading about zombies had some element that ended with “and the zombies broke through.” He knew this camp was safe only as long as it took for chance and the human condition to break things apart so the zombies could exploit the weakness and overwhelm them all. It was a well-worn theme in zombie literature. Exceptions were exceptionally rare. Even space stations and off-world colonies couldn't escape zombies. This pitiful little camp surrounded by a flimsy fence would definitely fall. The only question was when.
“Don't think I don't know our fate. I think every camp is going to end up with bunker busters raining down on them, but it pains me every time I hear of another one falling to the infection. If we had proper medical facilities we might have been able to solve this thing in short order. Working in tents with unreliable generators and with second rate Doctors has set us back as a species, perhaps forever.”
“Why don't you use a hospital?”
“I guess you didn't happen upon one in your travels, eh? Where do you think all those sick people went when they first came down with this disease? Hospital is just another name for morgue today.”
They were getting close to the main camp once again. As the tents came back into view, the colonel made one last plea. “I feel for you Liam. This is all depressing stuff. I hope you see what we're all about here, and that you'll consider how badly we need your grandma to help us. I can't change anything that happened up to this point, but I promise to do what I can to provide the very best future for her. For you. The cure is out there.”
A short pause.
“It has to be.”
Oh hell.
Liam was shocked he had no idea if there even was a cure. Everything he told him up to that point was contingent upon the belief there was a cure. All those people in the pit grave had contributed everything they had to the cause of finding it. This guy was saying all those deaths have so far yielded nothing. He was still unsure of the existence of that cure. He just said a companion camp was being erased from memory by the screaming death above. How many camps were there? How many graves? How many dead grandmas and grandpas? What if there was no cure?
No way Grandma is going to end up in a pit.
Privately, Liam was making plans to break her out of this place. Sadly, even with the most lax security one could imagine, escape for the both of them was a long shot, at best. Grandma couldn't run off into the woods and scale the fence. Steal a vehicle? Enlist help from inmates who actually want to be here? Roll her out the front gate into the chaos of the world? Liam could only find headwinds against his route to freedom.
He would have to bide his time.
Then an image popped in his head; a logical conclusion to this whole affair. Fire and death.
Were the planes destined to bomb this camp already in the air?
Paradoxically he was shaken to the core to realize the thought actually comforted him.
Chapter 9: Containment Failure
As the pair re-entered the complex of tents, a soldier ran up to the colonel with a message.
“Sir, I uh—”
He looked at Liam, then back to his boss.
“Speak freely unless you're reporting a state secret.”
“Yessir. The MRAP has arrived and we have one of the subjects in the research suite. He didn't look like he'd survive for much longer.”
“I'll be right there.”
The soldier tore off and they resumed walking the short distance to the tents.
“Liam, I'm going to do something that is completely outside protocol and invite you to watch this procedure. I want you to understand what both sides of the equation look like, not just that pit back there.”
Would seeing the experiment happen in real time change his mind about anything? Doubtful. But it would tell him more than if he was warming a cot back in the tent with Grandma. Better to know as much as possible.
“Is it going to be bloody?”
The colonel looked at Liam with a sideways glance, not in a flattering way.
“This is the apocalypse, son, and you're afraid of blood? Suck it up!”
In the end Liam knew he would follow, blood or no blood. He was suddenly very committed to understanding what was going on in this place and, as much as possible, learn how he could eventually get Grandma out of there.
Step 1 was watching this procedure. Step 40 was walking her into his own home.
The colonel took him to one of the largest tents. He expected a throng of orderlies and doctors to be running about, spinning centrifuges or whatever they did in zombie movies. Instead, the first chamber contained a few folding chairs, as if it were a waiting area of some sort. The second, main, chamber was slightly cooler and marginally better lit, but was similarly sparse. A couple of people looked like medical staff, and the patient was laying on a fancy metal table underneath some lights in the middle of the room, but there was very little else in the large space.
“Where are all your people? ER doctors. The researchers.”
“You expected a hospital? This is it, kid. Now be quiet or I'll have to kill you.”
Even in his fragile mental condition, he recognized the joke. But he resolved to hold his tongue.
He took a seat off to the side of the central equipment, next to the colonel. There were a dozen other chairs in two neat rows of six, but there were no other observers. He thought about asking where Hayes might be, but he didn't want to accidentally get him invited.
The patient was lying down and secured with leather straps. There was a doughnut-shaped a
pparatus near his head. It looked ultra-modern in the tent, with wires and stuff running across the grassy floor and under the canvas wall—presumably to computers, generators, or whatever. Liam was unable to see who was on the table, though it appeared to be an elderly gentleman. Only his restrained arms were visible, as a large, heavy blanket covered the lower half of his body.
The doctor, or at least the lead medical person as it was difficult to deduce rank or responsibility from this lot, was spending most of her time tinkering with the doughnut contraption. He figured she had to be in charge because she was the only one who looked to be doing anything important. The two other staff were bringing things to and fro from a room at the back of the tent.
That left the colonel to tell him what was going to happen. “I'm afraid it isn't very interesting. They are getting something sorted with the CT scanner. When ready, the staff here injects infected blood into the patient, and then we use our sensors to track the physiological changes as well as brainwave activity. I don't think I'm giving away any secrets telling you that. We've tried taking the blood of newly infected, and from zombies we knew had been infected for a long time. We've tried giving just a little, and an entire transfusion. We've found none of that matters—the result is always the same. Death. But for some reason, elderly people hold the infection at bay much longer than the young.”
“OK, guys. Let's get this over with.”
The woman woke up the old man laying on the table. He was groggy for a long while, as if he'd been in a deep slumber. “Where am I? Who are you?” He looked confused, unsure where he was.
The staff tried to comfort the man, but to no avail. He strained against the restraints.
The woman had a syringe she was keeping low and out of sight of the volunteer, Liam didn't see it until the last moment before injection. It went quick.
The man calmed down immediately, like he knew he was done for.
“Please find my Janey.”
2
Liam wanted to jump up and throw off the shackles holding Bart to the table, but he remembered Bart was a volunteer. He suffered from dementia, but never gave any indication he was refusing to help. Maybe the dementia was worse than anyone realized.
Or maybe they didn't care.
Liam promised not to interfere; he was already on very thin ice. Sadly, he knew once the syringe went in, Bart's fate was sealed.
Now standing, Liam could clearly see the man's face and the look of fear there.
Eventually Bart seemed to relax.
Then he seemed to fall asleep.
Several minutes went by before the colonel spoke up. “It seems to be the common disease process when injected like this. First the patient falls quiet, and the transformation begins. It is very much like when a person is bitten, but not quite as fast, or violent. You are going to see it momentarily.”
But time went by and nothing happened.
Minutes. Then fifteen.
The staff became more antsy the longer the experiment went down this unexpected path. The doctor was still standing near the CT equipment, studying a small panel on its side. Other equipment with heartbeat and vitals were pinging along, telling everyone the man was not yet dead.
“Is he fighting it?” The colonel said it with incredulity.
“Sir, we don't know. This telemetry data is all out of sync. I need more time to tell you what I'm looking at.”
The colonel moved closer to the action, leaving Liam standing in front of the observation chairs. It did occur to him he was witnessing, nay, participating, in the first act of the last chapter of the camp itself.
This is where we all get infected.
But his curiosity would not be sated so easily, even against such fears.
“I don't believe it!”
Everyone stopped at the exclamation from the doctor. She was standing at her station, but pointing to the patient. She moved around the scanner so she could look at Bart's face. She needed the visual confirmation before she would add, “He's awake.”
No one was moving but the colonel. He moved to the near side of table, where he could see Bart's face too. Now Liam moved closer, if only so he could observe the whole spectacle. He was standing toward Bart's feet, but could still get a serviceable look at the man's face. And his eyes.
“Hello, sir. Can you hear me? Do you know what's happening?”
“Janey? I hear you.”
“Sir. Do you know where you are?”
“I hear you better now. What is this place?”
“Sir, you are in the Elk Meadow Research Facility. You are here as a volunteer. You are helping us with our research.”
“It really is beautiful here. It's so good to see you again.”
“Um, it's good to see you too, sir. How do you feel? Are you in pain?”
Bart was now looking straight up, not at anyone inside the room, but up into the scanner shroud around his head. He kept talking. “Am I dead? I don't feel dead. This seems so real.”
“No, sir, you aren't dead. We see your vitals and you're doing just fine. Can you tell us if you're in any pain?”
“You know I'm not a praying man, but I think this calls for a prayer. Janey has been found! And who's that? Clara my ahn-gyel! How are you still alive? Where are we?” He looked around as if he was seeing more than the metal contraption above him. And then began a prayer, first in English, but as he went along it digressed into gibberish, or maybe a foreign language.
For several minutes Bart talked in fits and starts.
While the room was focused on the man on the table, Liam sat back in a rickety metal chair. He conducted a drill involving his cell phone and his fast hands. While the phone was in his pocket he was able to swipe through the lock screen. When he felt safe no one was looking, he turned away from Bart and his observers and whipped out his phone, found the recording feature, started to record, noted the Wi-Fi signal indicator once again, and then dropped it back in his pocket.
He knew it was dangerous, but something unusual was happening here, and he wasn't going to let the opportunity go to waste. If he got out of here, someone might be able to decipher this nonsense.
He stayed in his chair for ten minutes, wondering the whole time if he had a guilty look on his face. No one bothered him as Bart rambled on and on.
Until Bart called for Liam.
In crystal clear English.
Then, all eyes were on him.
3
Liam looked up with genuine surprise. He pointed to himself as if to say “Did he say me?”
Everyone nodded in unison. The colonel punctuated it by beckoning him to come to the table.
They all huddled around Bart as Liam closed ranks. He was looking at Liam from under the device. “Hello, Liam. Thank you for the kind words back in the truck. Give my regards to Marty.”
Liam was struggling to find an appropriate answer.
From his left side, the colonel was nudging him. The unsaid words were, “Keep him talking.”
What do you ask a man with dementia, infected with zombie blood, who is under observation from a government agency of indeterminate nature? People always love talking about themselves. “Did you find Janey? How's she doing?”
“I found Janey here in Heaven. Yes. She looks marvelous. I'll be joining her soon. Her husband is here, too. He and Janey were by my side every day until the world ended. And my angel, Clara, too.”
Was dementia creeping back into his words?
“Mr. Bart, do you know where you are right now?”
“I'm under observation at the Elk Meadow Research Facility. I am a volunteer. I am helping with research.”
If Liam didn't know better, that was snark from the old guy.
Now Bart was talking in a hushed voice. “But I've learned something in this place, inside your machine. Something they didn't want me to find out. A secret.”
His next words were a whisper. Everyone leaned in to hear. “They can read my mind, but I can read theirs too. Clara, my li
ttle angel, showed me the truth about what they did to her.”
Bart began looking left and right in the chamber as if he was seeing something and reacting. “Damn you! You've given me no choice. Let me tell them the truth.”
He was yelling, causing everyone at the operating table to jump back in surprise. But then he resumed speaking very softly, inviting everyone to get closer once more to listen. “They killed Clara because there can only be three. I want you to know that much. They've threatened to do much worse to me. I have to do what they want. God forgive me. Forgive me, my Clara. For what comes next I can only say...I'm sorry.”
Everyone had leaned in to listen to the wisp of a man. The medical team was on one side, and Liam and the colonel were on the other—Bart's left. The colonel remained closest to Bart's head, determined to not miss anything spoken between Bart and Liam.
While everyone was focused on the words coming out of his mouth, Bart had somehow worked his left arm out of its restraint. He didn't even have to be quick about his next deed. He grabbed a very surprised colonel and with uncanny strength was able to pull him the last foot or so to his face. In doing so the colonel's head slammed into the CT device. Bart sunk his teeth into the side of his face.
Liam sputtered backward, as did the medical team.
Almost before their eyes Bart's vitals spiked and then flatlined. He was dead.
Liam took a few more steps back. To their credit, the medical team rebounded from their initial horror and were back in action. One was securing the hand of Bart and was working on reattaching it to the operating table while the other two attended to their leader.
Liam kept moving back. One small step at a time.
This is it. I'm living THAT moment when it all goes to Hell.
His mind was exploring the breadth and depth of the collapse of mankind. Did it all start in some government lab just like this? An experiment gone wrong spawns the undead to march on their nefarious journey? Or was the original virus released intentionally and methodically by a malicious purveyor of death? A cult? A secret organization? A foreign government? Terrorists? The colonel swore he knew nothing about its origin, but maybe it was above his pay grade?
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs Page 16