“Yeah we’ll tell you later. Do you need any help?” I said.
“Nah! We should be finished in about ten minutes.”
“Come and find us when you have finished here,” Chris said.
“No, problem,” Mike said turning and heading back to the pile of infected.
Chris and I started to walk along the fence back toward the gates.
“You do think it is Benton’s?!” I asked.
“It might be. For all we know it could be someone else who wants the Bunker. Whoever it is they know that they have to take us out and that I don’t like.”
“To tell you the truth I’m getting sick of all of this.”
“Look I know you wanted to head off and end Benton’s reign of terror, but we really do need to stick together.”
“I know what you’re saying bud. But that’s not what I mean. I mean that I am getting sick of having to struggle to live. It just seems every day is a battle to survive.”
Chris stopped short and I turned to look at him.
“Why are you talking like that?” He said looking worried.
“Look you know that before all of this happened I was a security guard? Well doing that was easy compared to all this.” I said waving my arms at everything.
Chris shook his head “Marc, the thing is half of the Bunker, if not more owe their lives to that security guard. That includes me. Jay and I would have still been up on that roof if you hadn’t have come along. I wouldn’t have met Tessa and we wouldn’t be having the baby. Mate all of that is because of you, the security guard.”
“You make is sound like I am some kind of hero,” I said looking down at the ground.
“In a lot of ways you are and in a lot of ways you’re not. You have proven time and time again that you are human and have faults. That is why people love you so much.” He finished saying.
Chris started walking again and I stood watching him walk away. Shaking my head, I ran to catch up.
“Love me; that is a bit much,” I said coming alongside him.
He shrugged his shoulders “Well it’s the truth.”
It threw me for a loop when he said that. I looked at the ground as I walked. My mind was spinning with thoughts of all those people looking to me for guidance. Chris stopped and I looked up to see that we were standing outside of the gates. The guards were slowly pulling them open and I looked up to the sentry posts and saw Amy watching me. I was tempted to throw a wave toward her, but in the end decided against it and headed toward the Bunker. Chris and I headed to the armoury to hand over our rifles. I decided to keep my pistol on my belt.
“What are you going to do?” Chris asked as we stepped back into the hallway.
I looked up the hallway toward the communications room.
“Might be an idea to see if Jake heard anything on the radio’s before the attack,” I said.
Chris gave a short nod and said “Sounds like a good idea.”
I knocked on the communications room door and waited for Jake to open it. We heard a grunt and then the rattle of the door before it opened and Jake peered out at us.
“I thought I said not to open the door unless you knew it was us,” Chris said in a harsh tone.
“If it wasn’t you, then they wouldn’t have knocked. They would have beaten the door down and killed me.” Jake said glaring back at Chris.
“Fair point,” I said following Jake back inside.
He assumed his favourite position at the radios.
“What happened?” Jake asked leaning back in the chair.
“Some fucker dumped a truckload of infected out in the woods. They found the fence and started beating on it. We had to put them all down.” Chris said sitting on the edge of the desk.
“Shit!”
“Did you hear anything on the radios before the attack?” I asked.
“Not really there was a lot of static and something that was pretty badly garbled. I tried to clear it up, but it was gone as quickly as it came.” He said lifting a pad from the desk and passing it to Chris.
Taking the pad, Chris slowly looked at the page in front of him. He ran his finger down it a couple of times before looking up.
“Sorry Marc, I haven’t got a clue what this was.” He said.
“Not a problem. We never had anything to go on anyway.” I said.
We left the communications room and headed down to the fourth floor and our own rooms. Chris opened his door and headed inside and I walked on to my room. Opening the door, I walked inside to find the pup lying on my bed. What the fuck?
“Who the fuck let you in here?” I asked the dog.
He just lay there on the bed wagging his tail, looking at me with his large brown eyes.
“You’re not staying here,” I said glaring at the pup.
Walking into the bathroom I stripped out of my dirty clothes and turned on the shower. I scrubbed myself from top to bottom before feeling any better. Drying myself I stood in the bathroom doorway watching the pup lick his nuts. I headed to the wardrobe and pulled out some clean clothes and put them on.
“Come on then, ya mutt. Let’s go and see who thought it would be fun to drop you off in my room.” I said pushing the pup off my bed and dragging him by the scruff of his neck toward the door. Dragging the large pup up the hallway was a pain. His nails were digging into the carpeted floor and it was like dragging a dead weight.
“Come on you fucker!” I shouted when I was halfway to the lifts.
Chris opened his door in a towel and looked toward where I was having a battle with the pup.
“What’s up with you?”
“Some fucker thought it was funny to dump this mutt in my room,” I said straining with the pup.
“Who would do that?”
“I don’t know who, but this fucker is not staying in my room.”
Chris shook his head and pushed his door closed. As the closed the door, I was sure I heard Chris laughing at me situation. If I found out he was responsible, I’d kick him hard in the nuts. Holding the pup by the scruff of his neck I stood waiting for one of the lifts. The doors opened and I saw Amy and Tessa standing there staring at me and the pup.
“What are you doing to him?” Tessa said slapping my hand and making me let go. She bent down and started to stroke the pup.
“Someone dumped this in my room,” I growled pointing at the pup which was cowering next to Tessa’s legs.
“It was me,” Amy said.
If I could have turned any quicker I would have gone full circle.
“What the fuck Amy?” I shouted.
They flinched at the sound of my voice and tried to pull further out of sight.
She looked like she was going to slap me. Her shoulders tensed up and I waited for her to strike. To tell the truth, I wanted her to try so I could give her a slap back. Usually, I would never hurt a woman, but I was angry that they had thought Spirit could be replaced with the pup. Amy’s eyes narrowed and for a split second I saw her hand flex.
“Will you two please grow up?” Tessa shouted standing up.
I looked at her and then at Amy “Just keep him out of my room.” I said before turning my back on them and walking back down the hallway to my room.
Chapter Five
I slammed the door behind me and went to sit in one of the chairs. Leaning forward I placed my face in my hands and started to cry. I missed Spirit; she had been stuck like glue to me since I found her on the streets of Thornton. She had that special place in your heart that you reserve for your favourite pet. Her being gone was similar to losing a favourite aunt or uncle. I sat there sniffing and crying for the next two hours. A knock at my door brought me back to the here and now. Standing I wiped at my eyes with the palm of my hand and headed for the door. I pulled it open just as David was about to knock again. He looked upset.
“Marc there is something you need to see.” He said twisting his hands together.
“What’s up?” I asked after closing my door and following hi
m up the hallway.
“We were just finishing off moving the infected bodies when someone spotted something sticking out of a pocket. It was a USB flash drive. Mike decided to have a look and see what was on it. It’s not good.” He said pausing at the lifts.
I was puzzled “Where are we going?”
“The Operations Centre, the others are already there. They thought it might be better to let you be for a while after the stunt Amy pulled.”
“Yeah might not have been a good idea to put both of us in the same room after that happened.”
The lift doors opened and we stepped inside.
David turned to look at me and said “Look I didn’t agree with the way they went about it. You know the puppy thing. But I did think it was a good idea.”
“Mate it is too soon for me to thinking about another pet,” I said staring at the numbers on the keypad.
“I understand.” He said.
For the rest of the journey in the lift, we stood in silence. The first floor seemed very quiet as we headed for the Operations Centre. We opened the doors and I noticed that the kids weren’t anywhere in sight.
“Where are the kids?” I asked as we walked toward the offices.
“We asked the teachers to take them down to the barracks level.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Well let’s just say that you are not going to like it at all.”
We had stopped outside of Doc’s office. Pushing the door open I saw Chris holding hands with Tessa. Amy was leaning against the filing cabinets in the corner. Mike was sitting on a chair that was leaning against the wall. Doc was sitting behind his desk with his hands palm down on it. I walked over and sat in a chair in front of the Doc. On the desk was a laptop and the screen was blank.
“Glad you could join us, Marc!” Amy said from behind me.
My face must have betrayed how I felt because Doc laid his hand on mine.
“Fuck you Amy!” I said quietly.
“You can both stop, right now!” Doc said going red in the face.
I shrugged my shoulders. Amy had changed so much since I had saved her from doing something stupid.
“Ok, Doc! What’s so important?”
“The others have had time to view this. But they thought it might be wise to let you calm down after the dog thing.”
He leaned over and tapped the enter key on the laptop. The screen lit up and I instantly got angry. There on the screen was the face of Dr Jackson the arsehole who had created the virus.
“Hello, the Bunker. My name is Dr Jackson and I work for a company called Benton’s. Now I know that you have someone there called Marc. What you don’t know is that he is the sole cause of the infected humans that are busy trying to eat you.” He smiled and paused before continuing.
“He did some very irresponsible things at the beginning of the outbreak and because of this he caused countless deaths. We here at Benton’s have been working hard to create a vaccine, but no longer have the ability to test it out on any uninfected people. Hence this message in a bottle as you might say.” He laughed slightly at what he thought was a joke. “We have sent you this message with the hope that you will help us create the vaccine. We need your healthy uninfected people to test it out on. Don’t worry this vaccine is perfectly safe…”
“Surely you don’t fucking believe this nut job?” I asked looking around the room.
Doc leaned over and tapped the enter key pausing the playback.
“Of course we don’t,” Chris said from behind me.
“We are getting close to the end of the message,” Doc said hitting the enter key again.
The image of Dr Jackson continued speaking to the camera “…and you will be handsomely paid for your trouble. As I have mentioned before please do not trust Marc for he is the instigator of all our woes. I thank you in advance for your participation in this endeavour.” The screen went black and I turned around in the chair to look at everyone.
“I had no idea that you had escaped from such a…. words escape me,” Amy said with a sad looking face.
Chris cleared his throat “I think you want to say a fucking psycho.”
“Sorry that you had to see that guys,” I said feeling everyone’s eyes on me.
“What are we going to do about this?” Mike said from where he was sitting.
“I think we should disregard everything that was said in the message. The only thing that concerns me is the way the message was delivered.” Doc said closing the laptop.
I looked round at him “I think your right Doc. Benton’s went out of their way to prove to us that they know where we live and that they are quite happy to send infected to attack us.”
“What should we do?” Tessa said holding tightly to Chris’ hand.
I knew that in the end they would come to see Benton’s in the same way I had from the very beginning. Everyone looked at each other and then turned to look at me.
“Don’t you dare? I have wanted to get rid of them for a while.”
“It’s just we all thought that if we left them alone they would leave us alone,” Chris replied.
“I told you all they think about is how they can rule over everyone that has survived.”
“But we didn’t know that,” Amy said.
“Look I have been trying to warn you all for months but you never wanted to listen. I’m going back to my room.” I said standing and heading out of the office.
Chapter Six
“Marc…” I heard Chris shout before the door closed behind me cutting off what he wanted to say. I decided to take my time getting back to my room. Closing the door, I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes and thought on everything that had happened. That night I had a nightmare. This time Chris was the infected and he was trying to catch me. I was running through a darkened bunker. I could hear his moaning but every time I thought I had lost him in the maze of hallways and rooms. I would turn to find him a few feet behind me with green slime and black blood running from his open mouth. I tried everything to kill him, but nothing ever seemed to do damage to his head.
Waking with a cold sweat I climbed out of bed and walked into the bathroom. I splashed my face with cold water, and then turned on the shower. I stripped and climbed in. The hot water instantly stripped the chill I had from my bones. I stood with my head against the wall letting the water run down my back. My stomach rumbled, letting me know that I was hungry. I got dried and pulled on some clean clothes. Stamping my feet to settle my boots I headed out the door. Walking the hallway, I felt bad that I had left the meeting the way that I had. I really didn’t need to take my problems out on Chris and the others. Shaking my head I waited for the lift. Seeing movement out the corner of my eye I turned. Rosa stood looking at me rocking from one foot to the other.
“Hey Rosa how are you doing?” I asked.
She stopped rocking and mumbled “You’re still not mad at me?”
I smiled and turned to look at the lift doors before saying “No Rosa I’m not angry with you.”
She took a couple of hesitant steps toward me before stopping.
“I heard the message that creep Dr Jackson left.” She said.
Puzzled I turned and asked “Did you know Dr Jackson?”
She nodded and came to stand beside me.
“You said he was a creep?” I asked.
The lift came and we both walked inside. The doors closed and I stood waiting for Rosa to answer. We passed the third floor before she said anything.
“Father had him come to the house a few times. He was always trying to chat me up.” She shivered “He gave me the creeps. He said I had good genes.”
I felt sorry for her. Dr Jackson had always been a dick back when I used to work as Benton’s night security.
“I can see him being a dick,” I said trying to make her feel somewhat better.
She sighed “There are times that I think that if I had gone out with him I would have found out about all this and manage to stop them.”<
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I just nodded because if I said what I really wanted to I would have upset her more. The Rosa that had first come to the Bunker wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at all of this. That Rosa had felt that she owed nothing to anyone and that everyone was placed on this earth just to serve her. The doors opened and we stepped into the hallway on the first floor. We entered the dining room. Rosa headed behind the counter and I went to the large flasks of tea and coffee. I grabbed a mug of hot tea and sat down as far from the door as I could. Rosa had changed so much for the better since she came here and that made me smile a genuine smile for her.
Slowly people streamed into the dining room and started to grab hot drinks and food before sitting down. Watching couples and families sitting down to talk and laugh made me think that we would have to deal with Benton’s. Chris came in holding hands with Tessa. I sat further back in the chair trying not to be noticed. Amy came through the doors with Philip, they were laughing together and every now and then they cast a look back at the doors. David and Jennie followed behind them and David’s face was a riot of red embarrassment. Poor Jennie didn’t look any better. I smiled and sipped at my tea.
The door slammed off the wall, but I didn’t see anyone come in. Suddenly my hand was wet from the wrist to the tips of my fingers.
“What the fuck?” I shouted standing up, spilling my tea in the process.
I looked down and saw the pup looking up at me from under the table. His tongue was lolling out the side of his mouth.
“It looks like he wants to say sorry.”
Looking back up I saw Chris grinning at me, Tessa was trying hard to hold her giggles in. I looked back down at the pup, his large brown eyes were staring straight back at me. Tell the truth I couldn’t be angry at him. It wasn’t his fault that I lost Spirit. I sat back down and placed my hand on his head. He rubbed his head back and forth under it.
“Want another cup of tea?” Tessa asked.
I looked up “Please if you don’t mind.”
She smiled at me and picked up my mug and walked back to the counter. Chris sat down beside me and watched his pregnant girlfriend.
The Infected (Book 6): Last Shot Page 2