Run (Book 2): The Crossing

by Rich Restucci

  “Let’s get these doors closed,” the SEAL pointed at the various exits from the room, “and we can check the other rooms one at a time. Wilcox, get the civvies down here too, and figure out if we can seal that elevator door somehow. Dallas, you’re with Wilcox. ”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  “You got it, Andy.”

  Dallas and the kid moved off, following orders. “This place is a mess,” Rick said. “There’s contaminated…goo everywhere.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to clean it up. Don’t get any on you if you can help it. Let’s get this door first, you cover.”

  Rick and the SEAL moved to the door and they closed it in short order. They moved to the second of six doors and a dead woman stumbled out and into Androwski before either of the men could do anything. She latched on to him and tried to bite him as they went down. She missed her first attempt, and raised her head back for another go, when Rick thumped her in the head with the butt of his M4. She fell to the side, and Androwski scrambled backward. Rick raised his rifle to shoot her, but another undead woman lurched out of the same door and grabbed the barrel of his rifle. The thing pulled the barrel toward her and Rick fired two rounds into its upper chest, one below the right collar bone, the other center mass. Neither round had the desired effect, and the creature pulled the rifle to the side and lunged at the fresh meat. Rick let go of his weapon and fought the woman off as Androwski stood and aimed his MP5SD3, “I don’t have a shot!”

  Rick didn’t answer, as he continued to fight the zombie who had him. She had managed to grasp his right wrist and his tac-webbing, her grip was like iron. The thing that had initially grabbed the SEAL grabbed at his ankle and latched on to the pant leg of his BDUs. He shot her in her snarling face, and took a quick two steps forward using the butt of his rifle to imitate what Rick had done moments before. The thing’s head snapped to the right, but she didn’t let go, and had begun to growl. The SEAL put his suppressed weapon to her head and squeezed off a single round. She let go of Rick immediately, and dropped to the floor, but not before two more undead stumbled from the door, and another from another door.

  “Shit, back up! This is getting out of hand.”

  Both men hurriedly moved back to better assess the situation, as more undead staggered out into the common room. The men took them down with single shots, and soon it was quiet again. Androwski looked at Rick. “You know we have to try closing those doors again.”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to shine my light in them from ten feet away first. Then I’m going to let you close it while I cover you. From ten feet away.”

  “Pussy.”

  Rick smiled. “Tactical pussy.” The men closed four of the six doors when Wilcox and Dallas returned with the rest of the party. Seyfert and Stenner were with them. Stenner’s face was ashen.

  There was a thump on the back of the fifth door shortly after the duo closed it, and when Rick shone his light down a long hall through the sixth door, several forms lurched toward them. Androwski was about to shut the door when Rick stopped him. “Hold on, let’s get those ones from here.”

  “Good call,” the SEAL replied, and the two men fired several rounds down the dark corridor before they closed the door. The thumping continued behind door number five.

  “Okay, we can talk at normal levels now,” began Androwski. “Anything that was down here already knows we’re here. Be extremely careful about getting any of these fluids on you. I don’t think we’ll be able to use this room much until we bleach the shit out of it.”

  “That won’t work anyway,” said Brenda. “The virus isn’t a normal virus.”

  Bob shook his head, “I’m still not buying your alpha wave theory, Doc.”

  Brenda became heated immediately. “It doesn’t matter what you believe, we—”

  “Okay, stow it. We can worry about that later.” Androwski looked at Seyfert. “What’s the word from upstairs?”

  Stenner and Seyfert looked at each other, then back at the chief. “We, we ah, should probably talk about that in the cone of silence.”

  “Honestly, I’m too damn tired.” He pointed at the scientists. “They’re going to find out anyway, so spit it out.”

  “We checked the monitors before we came down this shaft…”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And we’ve got a hundred Limas at least two levels above, where the labs are.”

  “So they got the spook, but they can’t get down here, that’s good news.”

  Seyfert and Stenner looked at each other again.

  “What?” Androwski demanded.

  Stenner looked scared. “We were looking at the Limas wondering how they all got in the labs so fast, when we saw one of them pushing through the crowd. He was wearing a black T-shirt and sunglasses, and he…”

  “He looked at the camera, smiled, and fucking flipped us off,” Seyfert finished.

  “This is not possible,” Ravi said.

  Rick sighed. “It is.”

  Everyone looked at Rick.

  “He’s right,” agreed Dallas. “I seen it too. Guy named Billy could walk right pas’ them pus bags an’ they wouldn’t s’much as look at ‘im. Course Billy was a lil’…off.”

  “We’ll need to talk about this later. Right now, we need to seal this elevator so this guy can’t bring his dead pals down here on top of us.”

  “Well, that’s easy.” Everyone looked at Bob. “This is a nuke bunker.” Blank stares. Bob rolled his eyes, walked over to an open panel and pushed a button. A second panel, next to the elevator door slid open. A small wheel with a red handle was recessed into the wall, as was a keypad.

  “This place,” he spread his arms wide, “was made for important people. The powers that be didn’t want anybody freaking out and trying to leave if the surface was irradiated, and they certainly didn’t want anybody coming in. If we turn this wheel, a big steel door will close from the ceiling down. I don’t know how thick it is, but it will keep out the zombies. We need to find Dr. Crisp, and Major Mello’s bodies. They have the keys to activate this door.” Bob pointed to the keypad where two round key holes were evident. “I gotta tell you though, once the steel drops, it locks in place, and can’t be raised again for, like, ten years or something. There’s enough food and water down here to last us.”

  “Gotta be another way out of here,” Wilcox said, looking around.

  “If there is, I was never told about it, and I was one of those guys who kinda knew about that stuff.”

  “You are forgetting a vital piece of information,” Linda said. “All of our equipment is upstairs. We still need to work.”

  “Not all of it,” Ravi said, and put down the heavy backpack full of hard drives.

  Androwski stepped in the elevator and looked up. The hatch was still open, and he could see light from the floor above. He stepped back into the ante room. “Can’t work if you’re dead. Find those keys, there’s no way to close this door and keep it closed from the outside.” Thumping continued from some of the closed doors in the common room, everyone looked in that direction. “And we have more work to do.”

  53

  “Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking.” Brooks looked at his dead captain. “I just can’t get that song out of my head, you know? It must be the elevator. Triggered that song or something, I don’t know.” The dead man took a step toward Brooks, but Brooks fell silent and the thing stopped, looking at him quizzically. It was just Brooks and the dead soldier in the elevator. The agent made a face. “Ew, you’re a mess.” It came at him again, and stopped when he stopped talking. It reached for him, but didn’t grab, then it put its hand down.

  A swift kick with a combat boot to the solar plexus that probably would have killed a living man, sent the creature sprawling. It got back up slowly, but immediately, and turned around, surveying the confines of the elevator. Brooks drew the captain’s knife from his side scabbard and stabbed the dead man between the shoulder blades. There was no re
action, and the thing continued to look about the steel walls. “Got to tell you, Cap, I like you better this way.”

  The elevator opened, and dozens more dead came traipsing toward it. Brooks stepped out and pushed some in and then stepped back in himself. His tally was one hundred and fifty-one, a sizeable force to attack the traitors and scientists with, and IEDs were unlikely to destroy his soldiers unless they suffered severe head trauma. The CIA man couldn’t wait to get back to Nebraska to talk with Recht. The swarm that would certainly have not reached the stadium yet consisted of more than eight hundred thousand. Almost a million soldiers if he could figure out how to control their movements. This is better than a bare-handed strangulation! Recht might have his own personal army of thugs, but lookey what I have. He smiled. When I’m done with that sick preacher, I’ll move on to Alcatraz and have some more fun. It’s like Christmas!

  54

  The dead major and the dead security guy were easy to find, and their keys were appropriated. Dr. Crisp was another matter. He was nowhere to be found. Androwski began to get nervous. “He’s got to be in one of the other rooms.”

  Bob raised his eyebrows. “Dude, those doors don’t lead to rooms. This is an entire facility, just as big down here as up there.” He pointed up. “There are buildings down here, and a swimming pool, and a supermarket, and a geothermal power station. There’s even a series of fish ponds full of, like, ten species of fish. It will take you a week to check everything.

  “Don’t have a week. They’ll get in here unless we close that door. Where would be the most logical place for this Crisp guy to hole up, or go if, well if exactly this happened?” Andowski spread his arms indicating the re-killed dead.

  “The labs. Guy couldn’t stay away from the computer labs. Most administrators administrate, but Crisp is extremely hands on.”

  Brenda raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Wait, there are computer labs down here too?”

  “Yeah, it’s a fa-cil-ity. You didn’t think a nuclear holocaust or zombie apocalypse would actually stop the work these guys did, do you?

  Dallas stepped up. “Where’s the labs, kid?”

  “Through there,” Bob indicated the door that the pounding was coming from.

  Dallas rolled his eyes. “‘Course. Prolly another damn elevator shaft too. How come we’s always findin’ secret unnergroun’ places anyways?”

  “Wilcox, Stenner, cover. Seyfert, you, Dallas, and Anna cover the civvies. Fall back if we get overwhelmed, but take as many out as you can. Rick, you get any roamers. Breach on one. Three, two…” Androwski pulled the door open and a lone dead woman fell forward. The SEAL stomped on the back of her neck twice, and she flopped in place. He kicked hard, her head snapping back, and the un-life left her. She was the only creature at the door.

  Androwski didn’t turn around as he shone his tac-light into the yawning darkness of the doorway. “Cover. Wilcox, do not shoot me.”

  The SEAL panned the light back and forth, then stepped through the door. In a few seconds, the corridor was bathed in florescent light as he had discovered a light switch. A short corridor ended at a glass door, and beyond was a large area with many desks and computers. Oddly, although the corridor had held a dead woman, there wasn’t much blood, and the far door was closed.

  Androwski came back through the door. “Okay, head count. We line up these bodies and figure out how many are missing, then we find them. Bob, how many were down here.”

  “Forty-three with me and Tim, so forty-one.”

  Seyfert moved to help with moving the bodies, but Anna stood in front of him. “And just where are you going, Sergeant Dumbass?”

  “I… I was going to help with…”

  “Nope. You’re gonna sit down.” Everyone was looking at her as she righted a wooden chair. “Right here. There’s no goo on this chair so plant it.” She pointed at the chair and the SEAL groaned as he put his bottom on it. She looked down at him, arms folded. “Screw with my bandages again, and I’ll shoot you myself.”

  “I’m not a sergeant…”

  Dallas started to chuckle as he looked down at Seyfert. “He he. Tough as nails except in the face o’ wimmin. I bet—”

  “You too, Redneck,” she said and righted a second chair. “A concussion, bullet to the leg, and getting thrown down an elevator shaft? Sit! You can both provide cover with your asses in those chairs.”

  The big man did as he was told, the SEAL grinning at him. “Shut it, pard, not a word.” Seyfert raised his hands defensively.

  When the bodies were lined up, Androwski counted them three times. “There are only twenty three. That’s eighteen potential Limas unaccounted for.”

  “This place is huge, you can’t possibly think that everybody got killed right here. The bathroom,” Bob pointed, “did you check the bathroom?” Androwski and Rick looked at the unassuming wooden door. “I saw some wander in there on the monitor. I was pulling for the guy that was hiding, but he can’t have made it. Door opens in.”

  They worked the bathroom as they did every door they came across. The SEAL would push the door open, and Rick and Wilcox would blast whatever was on the other side, while Stenner would be a backup. “On one…” Androwski counted down from three and kicked the door on one. It moved forward a half inch and stopped. There was dead weight behind it. “Excellent.” He moved forward and knocked on the door. The team waited a full minute without hearing any signs of undead before Androwski pushed the door open. The light was on, and there were two destroyed zombies on the floor apparently taken down by blunt force trauma. The SEAL moved into the room and was covered by Rick and Wilcox, Stenner holding the door. The four stalls were kicked open one at a time, but revealed nothing but toilets.

  Bob showed up a moment later. “Huh.”

  Wilcox looked at him. “What? What huh? Huh what?”

  “Well, the guy that was hiding in here was a black dude, don’t know his name. Neither of these folks is black. That’s a huh-able conundrum, don’t you think?”

  Androwski started looking around again and was confounded. “So where the hell did he go?”

  Rick pointed at the wall, and everyone turned to look. “In there?” A large vent grate was above the last stall. Androwski stood on the back of the last toilet and shone his light through the grate. He then slung his rifle, reached up and pulled the grate off with ease. “Rick, take this.” He handed the grate to Rick and unslung his rifle again. Shining the light down the vent, he could tell that it went for about six meters, and ended in a T-junction. “He must have gone in here. There’s no place else to go.”

  Bob ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “So this means we have a potential zombie in the air conditioning?”

  “Unless you want to go find him.” Androwski cupped his hands in front of his mouth. “Hey! Anybody alive in there?”

  “Aw man, the zombies came in this bathroom almost two weeks ago. There’s no way that guy is alive in there now, or at least he’s damn skinny with no food.”

  “We can’t worry about that now, we need to find that key.” The group left the bathroom, and Androwski started giving orders. “Dallas, Seyfert, you watch the civvies. Wilcox, you cover the elevator, and let us know if anything comes down. Everybody else,” Bob pointed at himself and raised his eyes questioningly, “yes, Bob, you too. Everybody else come with me.” As an afterthought, the SEAL asked Ravi to come too.

  The corridor to the lab was bright, and mostly clean, and the lab doors were hermetic. “Looks familiar,” Rick said as he peered through the glass. “How the hell do you get funding for something like this?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” asked Bob. “This is the US government. Their funds are, like, limitless.”

  Androwski turned his head. “Focus.”

  They moved into the labs in cover formation, checking corners and behind desks. No blood, no undead, no living people in the first lab. Bob accessed the second lab with his security ID badge, and it was much the same. The last door, mad
e of steel with a small window, where the others were glass, remained locked as it would not accept his card, “Thought this might happen. I needed clearance before I could access these last labs. Somebody always had to go in there with me.”

  “So how do we get in there?”

  Bob knocked on the door. After ten seconds, he knocked again. “Well, at least we tried. I don’t know if there’s—”

  A scared voice came over the door intercom, “Yes?”

  “Doctor Crisp?”

  “Yes, who is it?”

  Bob pressed the intercom button. “It’s Bob! I’m here with some military types, and some scientists from MIT. They need your key to shut the elevator down so the army of zombies that is on the floors above us can’t get down here and eat us.”

  A moment passed before the person on the other side responded, “Bob who?”

  “Bob, the IT guy! You and me used to play cards. You sucked and I took all your money.”

  “Where are all the infected people that were out there before?”

  “Dead. Well, dead-er. Re-killed? I told you, there are Navy SEALs out here.”

  The doctor peeked through the window and Bob waved. Dr. Crisp seemed to waver a moment, then opened the door and stuck the barrel of an M16 in Bob’s face. Bob put his hands up.

  No one raised their weapons. “Dr. Crisp?” The man’s gaze flicked to Androwski. “We’re here to work on the virus with you. We’ve brought people you may know.”

  Ravi stepped forward. “Hello, Allan.”

  “Ravindra?” Crisp lowered his weapon. “I don’t understand.”

  “Dr. Crisp, we need that key now.”

  “Of course.” He pulled a chain from around his neck and produced a key, just as the lieutenant received a panicked call from Seyfert.