The Apocalypse Crusade (Book 1): War of the Undead Day One

by Peter Meredith

  When he climbed in he gave her a long greedy look. "Anything I want," he said as a statement, not a question.

  She had no choice except to agree. Eng was clearly cold-blooded. He had committed mass murderer on a tremendous scale and all he could think about was getting laid. She was sure he would kill her if she was anything but his perfect fantasy. "Of course, anything."

  Chapter 16

  //11:59 PM//

  1

  A mile behind the quarantine line at the Walton facility, strung out along route 24, were sixty emergency vehicles. They ranged from boxy, ambulances to seventy-foot hook and ladders. There was even a pumper truck and two water tenders, though no one had expected there was going to be a fire. As it turned out, no one knew what to do when the fire started. They couldn't break quarantine even if they wanted to and really, with the radio alight with the sounds of the state police fighting for their lives, no one in that whole mess, other than Bobby Dern wanted to.

  Bobby and his partner Karl had spent the greater part of that very long day taking turns napping in the back of their ambulance. They had been bored to tears right up until they got the call from Edmund.

  "My name is Edmund Rothchild. Do you know who I am?"

  "Yeah," Bobby answered. He knew who Edmund was. Everyone knew, especially after he had announced he had a cure for cancer.

  "I'm willing to pay you one million dollars for one ambulance ride. You will have to come into the quarantine zone and it will be dangerous, possibly deadly."

  Bobby was all in, Karl was not.

  "No. Absolutely no way. A million dollars is great but only if we live to spend the fucking money! We can't spend it if we're dead."

  "And how do we live on fifteen an hour?" Bobby shot right back. "We don't. All we can do is exist on so little. Come on, man! This is like a one in a million chance."

  Karl shook his head. "No, it's a fifty-fifty chance we get fucking eaten. I can't deal with those odds."

  "Then get out," Bobby said. "Go on." The hard truth was he didn't want to split the money, anyway. The dollar signs were lighting up his eyes and he didn't care that even then the other emergency vehicles were jerking around in awkward U-turns, trying to get the hell out of there as the last of the state troopers screamed down the road in a full retreat.

  Karl watched them zip past with his mouth hanging open and a panic growing in his eyes as he searched into the dark. "Shit, no. Bobby, come on man. You know what's out there. Zombies, man. I can't do..."

  Bobby punched him. The blow struck him on the side of the head. It wasn't a knockout punch. Bobby was a good person, generally and he had pulled the punch, making Karl cry out in shock and anger. Bobby had to hit him again. This time Karl was dazed and Bobby was able to force him out of the ambulance.

  Rain and the ache in his temple had Karl blinking up at him stupidly. "You...you shit!" he screamed. "You're choosing money over..."

  "Shut up," Bobby hissed. "You don't want to be so loud. The zombies, remember?" He started to shut the door on his friend but then paused, and added a lame sounding, "Sorry."

  Again the truth was that there was no sorry in Bobby. The thought of the money had too strong a grip on his mind. He neither knew nor cared that he sprayed mud all over Karl as he gunned the ambulance toward Walton. He was all about the money and not even the zombies could dislodge the million dollars from his mind. Nevertheless they could scare the hell out of him.

  "Shit!" he cried as he drove past the first one. It was missing an arm and there were easily half a dozen bullet holes running through it, yet it still stumbled on. It looked into the ambulance with slow, stupid eyes. Bobby stared right back, keeping his body rigid, hoping not to be seen. The zombie turned and began following after the red ambulance.

  "Oh, no," he whispered, as a second one turned to watch him pass. He stomped the gas and barreled down the road as fast as he dared. More zombies came at him, a lot more, and soon he was dodging the ambulance all over the road to keep from hitting them, only his speed was too great, and their numbers too many. He caught one with the edge of his grill, sending black blood spraying across his windshield and causing the ambulance to bounce as though he had run over a log and not a person.

  He drove on, his face stretched into a grimace, but he found that after hitting that first one, the next four that he crushed weren't all that bad. The last came just as he drove through the gates. There was no room to dodge and he simply plowed right over the dude, whispering another lukewarm: "Sorry."

  The big house came up quickly and there was the rich old dude, Rothchild, crouching next to a bush by the driveway. He had on a bio suit. Bobby didn't have a bio suit. All he had were gloves and a mask. Before putting them on, he reminded himself about the money once more, and then he climbed out into the rain.

  Rothchild waved him over and said, quite unnecessarily, "Hurry."

  No shit, Bobby thought to himself as he followed at a fast walk. Out loud he asked, "How am I going to get paid? A check?"

  "A check is fine, but you have to do the job first. She's right through here." Rothchild led him through a rich man's house and to a first floor bedroom where he pushed through plastic curtains that hung from the ceiling. Bobby paused just on the outside of the bedroom. Looking through the plastic gave the room a ghostly vibe, the people, Rothchild, a little girl, and a woman sleeping on a gurney, looked more like specters than actual real humans.

  "Just do it," he whispered to himself. "It's a million dollars, Bobby. Just do it."

  With a sharp intake of breath, he pushed through the curtain and stopped at the sight of the little girl--she was a freaking zombie. "Hey! You never said anything about transporting zombies."

  "She's harmless," Rothchild snapped. "And she is still a person. You agreed to transport three people, now help me with Gabrielle, damn it."

  The little girl didn't seem harmless, not with her black eyes looking like they belonged on some sort of freaky, giant bug. It was unnatural. Everything about her was unnatural. The way she stood like a manikin, the way her fingernails were cracked and how that same black pus oozed out of them. It coated the inside of her nostrils and ears as well. Bobby gave her a wide berth as he went to the foot of Gabrielle Rothchild's bed.

  "Who's this?" Jaimee asked. When she spoke it looked as though she had been drinking ink. Her teeth in all that wet black looked very sharp.

  "He's the ambulance driver," Rothchild answered. "Now, step back, dear."

  She did, cocking her head this way and that like a puzzled dog. Jaimee was curious over the man, the way he kept glancing at her as he wheeled the gurney along; the way his eyes looked so big above his mouth. Something dawned on her. "He's all ascared of me, ain't he? He be lookin' at me like I's a haint." Strangely, she liked the idea that he was afraid of her. His fear made her happy.

  Bobby was just about scared shitless. He knew the house was full of germs. He could almost feel them eating at his eyes or drifting into his ears or burrowing down into his very pores. And he knew that if the germs didn't get him the zombies would. He had a horrible feeling that, at any moment, Gabrielle's eyes were going to pop open and she would attack him like something out of a monster movie. Hell, he thought, I’m even afraid of the little girl zombie, just like she said.

  She kept staring at him, hungrily, and breathing through her mouth in something like an urgent pant. It was eerie and distracting. Twice, he rammed the hospital bed into a wall.

  "Ignore her," Rothchild ordered. "As I said, she is harmless." It was like trying to ignore an alligator walking next to you.

  When they went out into the rain her demeanor changed. She stopped eyeing him and took to staring at the burning building. "Daidy?" she asked, in a little voice. "Is my Daidy up in there?"

  Edmund had heard the explosion and had seen the fire. Fearing the worse he had tried calling Dr. Lee, only to have the phone ring and ring in his ear. More deaths on his conscious. "I'm afraid so, my dear."

  Her face twisted
, not into sorrow, but into anger. She was suddenly spitting mad. "Who did it? Who made that fire? Was it him?" She pointed a small hand at Bobby who actually took a step back, shaking his head.

  "No," Edmund said, kindly. "This man is here to save us. He didn't do anything wrong. Now, I have to insist that you get into the ambulance so we can escape. Your daddy would want you to escape."

  That was something at least that made sense to the little girl. Her mind was all sorts of mixed up and jumbled, but she was sure her daddy would want her to escape, at any cost. She climbed into the ambulance and sat on a little bench with her knobby knees pressed up against Gabrielle's gurney and at first everything was alright. Then Bobby closed the back door and she suddenly felt like a coon in a trap.

  "It'll be ok, my dear," Edmund said. "You can come stay with me on Martha's Vineyard. I have a compound there where you will be safe until we figure out what's going on."

  A compound? She wondered what that was. An image of a cell was the first thing that came into her mind. That wasn't escaping.

  2

  As the fire spread and grew, the situation on the fourth floor became desperate. The air was choked with a reeking black smoke and the only way to get relief from it was to crawl on the linoleum. No one did. With the inferno just below them, the floor was radiating heat like an oven. Bare skin touching that floor blistered in seconds. Only at the far, southern end of the building was it bearable. Twenty people huddle at the end of hall where the temperature was a balmy hundred and twenty three degrees and rising by the minute.

  Most had given up. Some had fainted and were being held up by those who had the tiniest bit of strength left. Thuy was among those who were done fighting. She was conscious, however she no longer had enough spit in her mouth to form words and every breath seared her dried out lungs. She leaned on Deckard who swayed on his feet. He hadn't given up, but he was altogether clueless on how to save them--or really how to save her. His world had shrunk. He was only mindful of the dreadful heat and of the woman holding onto his arm.

  With determination he fought to stay lucid, in case luck would favor them. He was under no delusion that it would. Their one hope had been for the elevator to come back up. It hadn't. Instead, the building shook and trembled beneath them as the fire gorged itself. The air roiled from the heat and shriveled their lungs with each breath. They were going to die; it was a certainty, or so Deckard thought.

  Then fortune announced itself with a soft ding!

  It was a second before he understood the meaning of that little noise: it meant the elevator had miraculously come back for them. In a flash he had pushed Thuy toward Dr. Wilson and was running for the elevator at a flat sprint, filled with the fear that the doors would close again and that the elevator would make its slow journey all the way back to the first floor. How long would it take to come back for them? Two minutes? Three?

  Three would be too long. Three would mean the death of some of the people around him. The unconscious ones couldn't be held up for long and, if they fell to the floor, they'd be cooked like pieces of chicken.

  These unpleasant thoughts spurred Deck who got to the doors just as they began their journey back on the track. They jerked to a stop when his arm interfered. "Come on," he wheezed to the others, waving to them. They were shadows in the smoke, but they were moving shadows, moving with a purpose. Thuy came first; without thinking he thrust her into the elevator, however she resisted.

  "No...the others first," she said, through a coughing fit. "My fault...all of this...I'll be last."

  He wanted to argue but his mouth was too dry to talk. She leaned into him, laying her face against his chest. Gently he placed one of his large hands across her cheek, hoping to block some of the heat.

  The others straggled up, none so much as pausing as they stepped into the elevator where the temperature was twenty degrees cooler. They groaned in relief. Deckard reached out and grabbed Wilson, Chuck and John Burke, holding them back. They were the only ones with "weapons."

  "Last on, first off," Deckard said. "Just in case of zombies."

  There were twenty of them on the fourth floor and seventeen of them forced themselves into the one working elevator like sardines--no one wanted to be left behind. Amazingly, there was room for one more and the only ones left in the hall were Riggs, Deckard and Thuy.

  Deck tried to push Thuy in once more, but she wouldn't go and since he refused to leave her side, that left Riggs, however the other passengers refused to let him on. "He's got the disease," someone said. Since he had been attacked by the zombies, no one had gotten within ten feet of him, not even to look at his wounds. He had smears of black all over his clothes.

  "We all got it, probably," he said in a whimper. To Deckard he looked like he was trying to cry, only he didn't have the moisture left in his body to form tears. "Please let me on, I can fit."

  "The elevator will come back for us," Deckard said, letting the door go. Three minutes, he thought, was a hell of a long time to wait in those conditions. Still they had hope now and he knew they would be able to hold on for a little longer. The creaking doors closed in their faces.

  The elevator was slow, painfully slow. It dropped down to the level of the fire and the heat skyrocketed. Everyone hid their faces from the intensity of it, but it was for seconds only and then the temperature of the air sank and with every foot further down the shaft they went, life became more bearable until at last the doors opened and cool air rushed in.

  The zombie Von Braun greeted them and was immediately smacked in the face with Burke's mop and, when Wilson and Chuck stabbed him with their makeshift spears, he went right over. The other passengers were so eager to escape they poured out of the elevator and like water, swept all around the struggling zombie, some trampling him in the process. They didn't care. They figured their nightmare would be over as soon as they got out of the building.

  In fifteen seconds they were out in the cool, wet night. Only Stephanie remained with the men and it was not by choice. She had been one of those who had fainted on the fourth floor, her tumored lungs unable to handle the smoke. On the elevator ride down had she regained consciousness and now she could only stand by leaning against a wall.

  "Run," Chuck yelled to her. She took one step before dropping to the ground.

  "Go, get her out of here," Wilson said to Chuck. "We got this."

  Burke, who was struggling to keep Von Braun pinned with the mop didn't think they had anything. As far as he could tell they were only pissing the zombie off. He kept wondering what would happen when it got to its feet? What would he and Wilson do then? A mop and a sharp stick simply weren't real weapons and they weren't much in the way of warriors. Besides this wasn't a part of his plan. Burke still had Jaimee to consider. She was the only thing that really mattered to him.

  Chuck went to Steph and hoisted her in his arms and then swayed, nearly fainting as well. Blinking like a drunk, he waited until his head cleared before heading for the lobby doors.

  "They made it out," Wilson said of Chuck and Stephanie. "We should go, too."

  The two men stepped back from the zombie who struggled to his feet, swearing in a weird staccato of mismatched curse words. John was sure it was going to attack them and he honestly felt bad for Wilson, because he planned on running if it did and he was fairly certain he could out run the middle-aged doctor. He was amazed when Von Braun did not attack the two and headed for the elevator instead.

  Wilson and Burke looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: Deckard and Thuy were going to die. Deckard was weaponless and Thuy was barely surviving the heat. Neither of them gave Riggs a thought. In their minds he was already dead; he was just waiting for his body to turn into one of them to make it official.

  "Ain't nothin' we cun do," Burke said, with a shrug, before he headed for the front doors. For a few seconds Wilson spluttered angrily at Burke's callousness; then an almighty crash occurred somewhere high up in the building causing the very foundation to tr
emble. Part of the structure had given way. The doctor, realizing that Burke's assessment was spot on, hurried after him, afraid that if he waited any longer he'd be buried alive.

  He found that being outside was only a little bit safer. Everywhere there were screams.

  The scientists had rushed out into the rain, rejoicing over their liberation and smiling up into the falling rain. With the light of the building behind them, they were all too human appearing and the remaining zombies in the area, about sixty in number, came swarming to feast.

  The defenseless scientists ran in every direction. Some made a dash for the cars in the employee parking lot, others ran for the supposed safety of the little cottages, and some just ran off into the night. With Stephanie so weak, Chuck hoisted her as far up as he could into one of the low cherry trees and then climbed up himself. Like a pack of dogs treeing a cat, five zombies sat below, staring up hungrily.

  John Burke paused in the middle of the mayhem to get his bearings and to catch his breath. His cancer wasn't as far along as Stephanie's, still, the smoke had done a number on him and he was unable to take a full breath. Wilson came up behind him and took his arm. "I have a car in the lot. We can..."

  "Get off," Burke snapped. "I gotta find my girl." An ambulance was pulling away from the largest of the cottages. John hurried as fast as he could to intercept it before it drove through the gates. With his lungs clogged with ashy mucous he was too slow to get in front of it. The best he could do was hammer on the side as it drove by.

  He tried to scream, "Jaimee? You in there?" only his lung capacity was that of an infant's and the words came out soft and wet. He hacked up something black and for a moment he thought he'd been infected, but then he remembered he was immune. "Jes the smoke," he said to himself.