“Where does it blow from?” I asked.
“There are explosives rigged into the building framework. They’re designed to bring the building down and trap everything inside.”
“Including us. Surely, Breton knows a way out. He isn’t going to get himself killed.”
“I’m sure he’s zombie chow by now.”
My emotions were running wild and I could feel adrenaline surging through me. I couldn’t stand still like this. I needed to do something or I was going to go crazy. Or possibly feral.
Someone yelled outside the door.
“I’ll take care of it, keep working on the bomb.”
“Jenna, wait,” he called, but I was already out the door.
The soldier outside didn’t see me coming, mostly because he was too busy trying to keep Lewis at arm’s length. Lewis had him pinned against the wall. I hesitated. The only way to kill a zombie was a bullet through the brain. I didn’t have a gun. Lewis’ head whipped round in my direction.
Oh, crap.
He lost interest in the soldier, who was currently bleeding from the throat, and turned on me. I think he recognized me. I had been angry at him before, but now face to face my anger was replaced with fear. His face was covered in dark bruises and black bile was running down his chin, mixed with soldier blood.
I froze. A super serum in my blood and I couldn’t move.
The soldier, now on the ground, pulled his gun from its holster. He tried aiming it before his arm dropped to his side as he passed out. The gun skidded towards me. I dived for it but accidentally kicked it, sending it flying up the hallway. Lewis slammed into me and I fell against the wall. I panicked and scrambled away from him. He caught hold of my foot and pulled me towards him.
“No!” I screamed.
I saw those teeth closing in on me and closed my eyes.
Wesley
I was torn between trying to disarm the bomb and going after Jenna. She couldn’t take on the whole Alliance. When I heard her scream, I raced out the door. Lewis was closing in on her. I saw the gun on the floor and grabbed it.
“Lewis!”
His head whipped round, his dead eyes glaring at me. I pulled the trigger. His body spun through the air and he hit the ground. I stared at his splayed body, feeling bile rise in my throat.
Jenna climbed to her feet. She threw her arms around me, sobbing with relief. I pushed her back, catching a glimpse of her hurt expression, before I turned away and vomited on the floor. I had never killed anyone before. It brought Freddie’s death back to me.
Lewis deserved it though. Zombie or not. He was a murderer.
I wiped a hand across my mouth, “I’m sorry.”
Jenna gently removed the gun from my hand. “It’s okay. Wesley? The bomb.”
I nodded and returned to the keyboard. I tried hacking the grid to see if I could halt the countdown. I kept coming up against firewalls. I could hack them but it could take hours, we had minutes at most.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m trying.”
I let out a frustrated cry and slammed a hand into the desk, “I can’t override it. There isn’t enough time. We have about three minutes before this place blows.”
“Okay, any suggestions?”
“Run.”
Sixteen
Jenna
The world was exploding around me. Plaster and concrete rained down on us. We made it as far as the stairwell before the bomb went off. The building seemed to crumble around us.
I was struck on the head by a chunk of concrete. I stumbled but kept going. Sparks flashed to my right and I felt pain in my cheek as they brushed against my skin. The floor below us was blocked. We turned back and started climbing. A chunk of the ceiling came down on Wesley, pinning his legs.
“We need to keep moving,” I said, trying to drag Wesley after me. I inhaled a lungful of dust and started choking.
“Stop, I can’t go any further,” Wesley said.
“Yes, you can.”
“No, my leg is trapped.”
I looked back in the dim light. His right leg was buried in the rubble.
“I could probably pull you out.” I tried to do just that, but he cried out in pain.
“Stop, stop. It’s no good.” The opening just up ahead, seemed to end at a brick wall. We were cocooned in rubble. There was no way out.
“We’re trapped,” I said.
“Someone will find us.”
“Yeah, years from now, after we’ve been eaten by rats.”
“Hm,” Wesley mumbled. He closed his eyes. I slapped him in the face.
“Hey! Stay awake. That’s what you told me. You can’t sleep with a head injury. We will get out of here, just stay with me.”
He stared at me, then reached out his hand to touch my cheek, “You’re eyes are back to normal.”
“They are? Guess that means your brains are safe.”
He laughed, “You know that’s a myth.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know your dad was crazy? Why would he want to mess with something so beautiful?”
Now he was delirious too. Before I was even conscious of what I was doing, I leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed me back, his hands in my hair. I pulled back shocked. What am I doing? He was grinning at me.
“We can’t do this.”
“No, I guess not,” Wesley said, but I couldn’t help notice he looked disappointed.
I was shocked to find that I was too. Zombie juice must drive you crazy.
“Wesley, I…” There was a rumbling overhead.
Suddenly everything collapsed in on us. I tried shielding Wesley. When something heavy struck my head, there was pain, then darkness.
Wesley
The light woke me. Not fluorescent bulbs, but actual sunlight. It was coming from somewhere above me. It was so bright it hurt my eyes.
There was a sound of falling rubble then suddenly; I was pulled free from my concrete tomb. I cried out in agony as my leg was freed. Definite broken bones there.
Tom stared down at me, worry etched in his face.
“Where is she?” he asked. The worry wasn’t for me then.
Then I remembered, “Jenna! Get her out. She was right beside me.”
I sat up trying to get back to the hole, but strong hands held me back. The building was little more than rubble. How had we survived? I could hear sirens all around the city. The emergency response team would be here soon.
“How did you know I was there?” I said.
“I picked up your body heat on this scanner,” Tom replied.
One of the men helping him, a tall guy with blonde hair and a goatee, checked out the hole. He came out shaking his head.
“There’s a hole on the other side. Looks like they got to her first. She’s gone.”
Jenna
Darkness all around. I’m sinking, drowning in it.
I clawed the air trying to find a way out. I jerked upright as lights came on around me, seemingly triggered by my movement. I blinked rapidly against the harsh light. I was in a white tiled room, lying on the floor. I looked around and realized it was a grungy bathroom.
Where was I? Where was Wesley? Memories of our kiss came back to me and I cringed. That was a big mistake. What was I thinking?
I needed to get out of here. I got to my feet and tried the door. Surprisingly, it opened.
Beyond it was a dingy room with a bed that had been stripped to the mattress. Another door and I was out in a hallway. It looked like a crappy apartment building. The lights in the hallway didn’t seem to be working properly. They kept flickering.
I considered knocking on one of the doors but the eerie silence convinced me otherwise.
If someone was on the other side of the door, I probably didn’t want to meet them. Better to just get outside and figure out where I was. Hopefully, I was still in the city.
I moved quickly down the hallway, trying to be
as quiet as possible. Five feet from the end of the hall, a group of AS soldiers appeared moving in silent formation, guns drawn. Before I would have run for it, but now my body seemed to act on its own.
When the closest one approached me, I grabbed the barrel of his rifle, spun so that I was behind him, and drove my elbow into the base of his neck. He fell and I had the rifle. I had no idea how to use it, so I used it as a club, striking the next AS in the face.
Time seemed to slow down, as I punched and kicked my way through them. In seconds, five bodies lay on the ground. Only unconscious, I hoped. I noticed a small black skull on their uniform instead of the usual Alliance logo. Where had I seen that before? Were they some kind of elite branch of the Alliance? I wondered why none of them had opened fire on me. They had the opportunity. Instead, they went head to head with me.
I could worry about it later. I ran off, looking for the stairs.
I found them at the end of the hall and started down. I made it two flights before the door opened on the ground floor and a stream of AS came in. I went through the door to the fourth floor. Maybe there was a fire escape I could use.
This floor was deserted and devoid of rooms. It was just an open space with plastic sheeting hanging up. A building site? The AS were closing in. I ran across the floor trying to use the sheeting for cover.
I reached the end of the building to find a solid brick wall. No windows and no fire escape. I walked the perimeter, but it was all brick.
This wasn’t right. It should have a window or something. The door opened and more soldiers poured in. There were at least ten of them. Could I take on that many? It wasn’t like I had a choice.
Staying in the shadows, I took two of them out silently, with a couple of well-placed blows to the face. The third one managed to cry out and alerted the others. They converged on me. I stopped thinking, just acted. Again none of them fired on me. They wanted me alive. I grabbed the sheeting and swung through the air, kicking a soldier in the head as I did. It didn’t take me long to dispatch the rest of them.
I checked one of them for anything useful. Apart from spare magazines, the only thing I could find was an old penknife. It might come in handy so I tucked it into my pocket. He had no ID on him or anything else personal. Close up, I could see other subtle differences in the uniform. These guys definitely weren’t regular Alliance. I left before they came to.
I ran down to the ground floor. When I crashed through the door, I expected to find a lobby but instead I was in a huge white room. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t a real apartment building, where the hell was I?
“Well done, Genesis.”
I jumped as the voice boomed from above me. It was female but it sounded almost robotic.
“Where am I? What’s going on?” I called.
“Welcome to Chaos. You have passed the test.”
Test? Was this the Alliance’s next move? Testing my abilities.
Two huge doors parted at the end of the room to reveal zombies. More than a dozen. They ranged from a man in a ragged suit to a little boy no more than ten years old. All of them watched me with ravenous expressions in their glazed eyes. I backed up against the wall. I was trapped.
“What is this?” I screamed.
“Level two.”
Seventeen
Wesley
“I asked you to do one simple thing, Wesley. Keep her safe and now we don’t even know where she is!” Tom screamed.
“Simple thing! There was nothing simple about it. You don’t know what we faced out there. We were being chased constantly. And where were you? Did you have any trouble leaving the city? Or did you just drive across the line, no questions asked?”
I could feel myself starting to lose it. Half because of the pain, but mostly it was because of Jenna. She was gone, who knows where. And strapped to this damn gurney, there was nothing I could do to help her.
Tom moved me to a building somewhere just beyond the city. Some old abandoned factory. He had people out looking for Jenna. He seemed to have a lot of helpers here. It was some kind of anti-Alliance community. One of them was a doctor. He was working on my leg now.
The door opened and a man came in. He was about thirty, wearing a military uniform. He stepped up to Tom and whispered something in his ear.
“Who the hell are you?” I snapped.
“This is Gil. He’s my second in command. He’s coordinating the search for Jenna.”
“Let me go, I want to help.”
Tom was staring at me. He seemed surprised to hear me say that, but I was beyond caring what he thought anymore.
“Can you hurry up and patch me up so I can go look for Jenna,” I said to the doctor, who from the look of him, graduated sometime in the last year. He took hold of my calf and yanked on my leg. I screamed as pain ripped through it.
“You’re not going anywhere on this leg. I need to set it.”
“I think it would be better if he was sedated,” Tom said.
“Don’t you dare!” I raged.
“Do as you’re told kid. I’ll take it from here,” Gil said.
“Go to hell. Tom, wait!”
He wasn’t listening and junior doctor gave me the sedative. I fought it as much as I could but eventually I went under.
Jenna
Broken and bruised, I lay in my cell wishing I would heal faster. The more wounds I had, the longer it seemed to take. I could feel my broken bones knitting together; it was agony. I didn’t mind the pain, actually I welcomed it, but I didn’t like feeling vulnerable. I was being watched constantly by cameras. The confrontation with the zombies had been brutal. The only weapon I had was an ice pick they had given me.
I could still smell them; see their horrific faces when I closed my eyes. I could feel the pick penetrating their soft flesh. I rolled onto my side and threw up.
My body wracked with sobs. I couldn’t do this. I just wanted to go home, to see Mom again. And Dad too, I guess.
I had no interaction with anyone apart from the woman who spoke over the comms. I had asked her what happened to Wesley, but she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. They had no interest in him, so maybe they just left him at Gene-Pharm.
Or maybe they killed him.
I couldn’t believe that. I was sure Dad had gotten him out. Right now, the thought of being trapped in Gene-Pharm was a lot less scary than where I was now. I almost wished I was back there. With Wesley? A small voice in the back of my head asked. No. Yes. Maybe? I don’t know. I kept going over the kiss in my head. It was just a spur of the moment thing. I don’t even know why I did it. There was little else to think about in here. I certainly didn’t want to think about what challenge I was going to face next.
I hadn’t seen anyone else since I arrived, apart from the soldiers I fought when I woke up. After the zombie test, the room filled with gas, and then I had woken up in here. I guess they weren’t taking any chances by getting too close to me.
An intercom crackled and that female robotic voice filled the room, “Level three will begin shortly, Genesis.”
I struggled to sit up, “No, please. Why are you doing this?”
“To test you. We want to know what you are capable of.”
“Please just let me go,” I sobbed.
There was silence. Had she gone?
“You have one hour until the next test.”
Guess not. But she hesitated. Maybe she was having second thoughts about keeping me here. I curled up on the bunk. Despite Dad’s faults, I knew he would come for me. And Wesley. He wouldn’t just leave me here. I just had to wait it out. They would come for me.
Eighteen
Three weeks later
Jenna
Blindfolded and handcuffed, I was led along by two soldiers. I was in a building, I knew that much, but I had no idea where. I had also been heavily sedated so I wouldn’t fight back.
I had awoken in my cell early that morning to the sound of a siren. They gassed me before hooking me up to a sedative drip
. Neither soldier spoke to me, but there was something big happening. As far as I could tell, they moved me to another building. There was only one reason I could think of. Someone had been trying to breach the building. It was Dad. I knew it.
“Sit down,” someone ordered. I was lowered into a chair, my arms strapped down. They removed my blindfold. The room seemed to be a medical bay. How many buildings did Chaos own?
With the drip still attached, I was just about staying conscious. One soldier stood by the door of the room, the other beside me. A doctor in a lab coat, wearing a surgical mask, came into the room. He was wheeling a small trolley full of surgical tools.
My stomach clenched. What new torture were they going to inflict on me now? I had spent the past few weeks running drills and assault courses. That was when they weren’t pitting me against zombies. They tested me every way they could. Endurance, strength, stamina. Were they finished? Were they going to dissect me now?
As he wheeled the table closer, I caught sight of brown hair escaping from the cap on his head. I took in the build and height and grinned. I knew it. I was going to get out of this.
He filled a syringe and moved over beside me. He jabbed the guard in the neck with the needle and he slipped to the floor.
“HEY! What are you doing?” the other soldier cried.
“Oh, sorry, was I not supposed to inject him?” he replied. I could hear a strong Irish accent. Why was he putting that on? When the other soldier went for him, he twisted the gun from his grasp and cracked him in the face with the butt.
“What took you so long?” I asked.
“Sorry, darlin,’ this place isn’t easy to get into.”
I laughed, “What’s with the dodgy accent?”
He pulled the mask down, “I was born with it?”
After Zombie Series (Book 1): After Page 10