by Addison Gunn
Men and women caught in the torrent lay on the cracked linoleum, shrieking as they burned alive.
Down the hallway an emergency fire hose, encased in a red metal cabinet, was attached to the wall. Sam bolted from her position behind the pylons and ran through the flames straight toward it.
A deluge of flame chased after her, setting the back of her jacket ablaze and scorching the end of her braid. Whipping off her jacket, she side-stepped a burning body and smashed open the cabinet with the butt of her rifle. Twisting the crank with her free hand, she waited for the release of water into the hose—nothing came.
“Sam!” Binh shouted. He’d left his position behind the pylons and was crouching inside a classroom doorway. Half of his face was blackened as he fought to reload his handgun with burnt, blistered fingers.
“Get back!” she cried at the others. “Everybody pull back!”
The flame-thrower operator unleashed again. The whole of the corridor was aflame. The Infected smashed through classroom doors, hid behind burning corpses, ran away.
As Infected ran past her, and the flame-thrower shot another stream of fire across the hall, Sam reached for her jacket pocket for another round and gasped at her own stupidity. She’d taken off her jacket when it’d caught fire. She was completely unarmed.
Ducking across the hall into a classroom, she waited for another break in the torrent of fire. Covering her mouth and coughing against the noxious fumes pouring from the burning hallway behind her, she waited for the right moment, then ran out into the flames. Fighting not to crash into burning and fleeing Infected, Sam grabbed up an AR-15 from a corpse on the ground and dropped to one knee.
Her boot caught fire on the burning floor. The skin on her face tightened in the flames and heat. The entire building shook with another violent blast, knocking Sam onto all fours. As the others ran for their lives, coughing violently, Sam clambered upright, inhaled deeply, closed one eye, aligned her vision through the rifle’s site, and shot straight into the flame-thrower’s gas tank.
34
COBALT FOLLOWED BEHIND Samantha’s Infected cronies for a few minutes of tense silence, as if shadowing an unexploded bomb. The sound of gunfire cracked and echoed from all over, both inside and outside the building, urging them on. The whole situation stunk to high hell, but they were committed now.
There were ten Infected with them, men and women covered in lichen growths and looking like concentration camp survivors. Their skeletal bodies moved unaided down the corridor—one foot in front of the other—but Miller honestly couldn’t figure how they were walking at all.
Down the passage was evidence of their former comrades’ folly. The Infected who had scattered down the hallways at the first explosion in the foyer were now corpses tangled in barbed-wire—or nothing but chunks of body parts, blown to bits and strewn across the corridors.
The Army had booby-trapped the entire building. Aside from the mines and the pylons, there were also trip wires over sharpened wooden stakes and neck-high wires attached to grenades mounted on the wall. This meant only one thing to Miller: the Army had arrived days ago, and the ‘cure’ the Johns Hopkins doctor had broadcast about over the radio was likely long gone.
“Boss,” Doyle whispered from beside Miller.
He exhaled slowly. “If you’re thinking we’re too late, I’m right there with you.”
“Then what are we doing?” Doyle pressed.
“Making sure.”
Doyle snorted. “Of what? That we’re walking into a trap?” His exo-knee brace gave an audible electrical grind with every step.
“What do you mean, walking into a trap?” Morland quipped from behind them. He stooped below a neck-high wire. “We’re already in it.”
“We have to be certain it’s not here,” Miller said. “Last time we found a thumb drive. Maybe we’ll get lucky twice.”
“And maybe this time we won’t lose it in the ocean,” Morland grumbled.
“The bodies are thinning out,” Hsiung said from the back of the troop.
“I’m not sure how they’re on foot,” Morland said. “Honestly.”
“No,” Hsiung snapped. “Look around.”
Miller glanced about the hallway; suddenly aware they’d passed through one building and were on a windowed breezeway headed toward the next. Apparently, none of the scrambling Infected had made it past this point. There weren’t any more corpses, no bloody puddles of flesh where an Infected had once stood.
“Don’t touch any of the trash,” Miller said at full voice. “And watch your head.” He’d meant it as a word of warning to the Infected who walked ahead of them, but none of them turned or even acknowledged he’d spoken. Just what had Samantha done to these people? How was she maintaining such control of them?
Just then the building shook. Dust trickled from the ceiling and the walls vibrated. It sounded like an artillery blast. Miller doubted there would be much left of Samantha or her troops, after that. They were running out of time.
Inching on, they emerged from the trash-filled breezeway and into the second building. It had a modern, sterile feel compared to the other, and while the older building had offices and classrooms, this one seemed to be full of laboratories, on either side of the hall. There was a large common area at the center, with passages radiating off in all directions. Devoid of trash and debris and the regular booby-traps, the empty building was also missing furniture, equipment, wall or floor coverings—everything was concrete from ground to ceiling—and doors. It was as if the entire structure, down to the water spigots and the lighting fixtures, had been stripped cleaned and hauled away. But to where? And why?
“Where are we?” du Trieux asked.
“The Traylor Building,” Hsiung answered, stopping in the center of the common area. “The research facility is one more building to the west.”
“Why clean this out?” du Trieux asked.
Doyle shrugged. “Red herring?”
“No, thanks,” Morland snorted. “I’m sick of fish. What I wouldn’t give for a kebab right now…”
“Shut it,” Doyle groaned. “Before I stuff my fist down your throat.”
“Why an empty building?” du Trieux persisted. “If the place is a trap, what’s their angle?”
“If there were mines they’d want the place full of junk. More debris means more casualties,” Hsiung said, and du Trieux nodded.
“Can’t be an ambush,” Miller said, “for the same reason.”
The Infected had stopped just ahead of them, waiting. They gathered around one another and murmured amongst themselves, casting suspicious glances back at Miller and the others. He wondered how much longer they’d cooperate. He scratched the inside of his palm, keeping his eyes trained on them.
“Where do you guess the breezeway to the next building is?” Morland asked.
“They took the maps off the walls when they took out—well, the walls,” noted Doyle.
“Going right makes sense,” Hsiung said. “The last one was on the north side of the building, too.”
Miller nodded, then stepped toward the Infected. As he neared, they pulled back abruptly. “Hold up,” he said. “Head that way.” He pointed to the right.
One of the women in the group squinted at him, then sniffed. She scratched at the lichen growing up half her face and moved off to the right. The rest of her group followed, shuffling their feet.
Miller turned back toward the others and shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t figure we’d get this far?”
A click from ahead made every member of Cobalt freeze in position. Miller strained his ears and heard the soft hiss of a lit fuse.
The Infected stood at the hall entry to the far right. The front-most of the group, the squinty woman, looked down at her feet, then to the side of the corridor, where Miller caught a glimpse of a thin, metal wire.
“Trip wire!”
Starting at the breezeway behind them, and then circling the circumference of the common area, charges went off
in quick succession, separating the floor from the baseboards. The entire cement surface beneath their feet jolted straight down and crumbled.
The Infected at the threshold of the corridor took off running. The three still in the hub remained behind, gawking at the destruction, as Cobalt sprinted from the collapsing floor straight at them. Miller crashed through them first, lowering his shoulder like a linebacker sending all four of them to the floor. Behind him, he heard the pounding footsteps of Morland, du Trieux, Doyle, and Hsiung following suit.
Or so he thought...
Doyle’s bellow was a knife to Miller’s gut. He disentangled himself from the horrendous-smelling Infected and scrambled to his feet.
Doyle hung from a bent, jagged rod of rebar just below the hallway, dangling above a cavernous pit by a single hand. At least two stories below him, in the building’s basement, was a pile of rubble.
Morland and du Trieux dropped to their bellies and crawled to the edge of the cavernous opening, hanging perilously over the edge to reach Doyle. It took the two of them together to lift the man clear.
Covered in concrete dust, bleeding from a gash on his head, and cringing every time his busted exo-brace moved, Doyle spat blood and cursed up such a storm Hsiung rolled her eyes.
Gripping their knees and panting for air, Morland and du Trieux fist-bumped but said nothing.
Hsiung put a hand on her hip and made to speak.
“Not a bloody word out of you,” Doyle spat at her. “Not a word.”
Hsiung clamped her mouth shut and turned on Miller, her face reddening.
“On your feet, soldier,” Miller snapped. “If you can.”
Doyle groaned but managed to stand with Morland’s help. He touched the wall for balance once, testing to see if his injured knee could bear weight, and turned white with pain, but remained upright.
“Lot of bloody help they are,” Doyle snapped, nodding toward the Infected.
“Can you walk?” du Trieux asked.
“If you think I’m staying behind, you’re bonkers.”
“All right, then let’s move.” Miller turned to face the Infected. Only four of them remained. He was about to ask where the others had gone when he heard another string of catastrophic booms. Smoke plumed down the hallway in their direction. Wherever they had gone, they’d triggered something.
Further down the hallway, they found them. All had been killed when they’d triggered a pressure-release mine hidden under the linoleum floor. Miller wasn’t sure he would have seen it either.
Doyle limped along at the tail of the group and grumbled under his breath. All Miller caught was, “…good for something.”
Moving ahead, they found the breezeway leading into the next building and increased their pace. The hall was walled with thick double-paned industrial glass on both sides. The research facility sat straight ahead, a blocky stepped structure of glass and concrete.
Outside, on their left, was a grassy area completely covered over with barbwire pylons and stationary Strykers.
And an entire battalion of troops, aiming directly at them.
Bullets starred the glass on their left, landing inches from Morland’s head and taking out one of the Infected. Morland ducked down and took off ahead of them, leaving the others behind as he turned the breezeway’s corner to the left and then barrelled to a stop.
More shots rang out and Morland hit the ground.
The rest of them came to the end of the breezeway at a sprint, twisting around the bend to return fire. On their left, from the grass below, shots continued to pierce the windows, striking the ceiling and hitting the glass on the far side of the hall. Shattered glass scattered across the floor.
They were pinned down. The Infected closest to the window took a bullet to the head.
“Doyle, take out that sniper!” Miller ordered.
Dropping to the ground and resting his custom rifle on the body of the fallen Infected, Doyle calmed his breathing, took aim through his sight, and sent three successive rounds through a hole in the glass.
Around the bend, Morland lay on his right side on the hallway floor, facing away from Cobalt. He was still gripping his rifle, and the Mk-1 on his back was strapped across his left shoulder. Miller couldn’t make out where he’d been hit, but his head had tapped the floor fairly hard and he was bleeding from behind his right ear. There was nothing Miller could do to help him at the moment.
If only Miller could get to Morland’s Mk-1, they’d be able to clear the corner and seek cover inside the building.
He had a sick thought.
“You!” he said, pointing to the last Infected. “Get me that grenade launcher!”
Without blinking the Infected ran around the corner and grabbed hold of the Mk-1’s strap around Morland’s shoulder.
Morland groaned in protest, which was a relief to Miller, but the Infected succeeded in peeling off the strap and tossing the launcher to Miller’s awaiting hands before taking bullets to the chest and abdomen and falling on top of Morland.
Rotating the drum, Miller whipped around the corner and shot two grenades down the hallway. The blast created plumes of fire and smoke, giving Cobalt just enough cover for them to come around the bend and bust through the first door inside the building. On their way, Hsiung and du Trieux grabbed hold of Morland’s feet, and dragged him behind them.
“How do we know which lab we’re looking for?” Hsiung asked, checking Morland’s vitals.
He slapped away her hand from his neck and sat up. He had several rounds stuck inside his combat vest. “Well, that sucked.”
“We don’t have time to search the whole building,” du Trieux said.
“Follow their lead,” Doyle said. “Wherever they try to stop us, go that way.”
Hsiung frowned. “The path of most resistance?”
Du Trieux raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Oui.”
“If that’s the case we head straight toward the barricade,” Miller said.
“Wait—where’s all our Infected?” Hsiung asked.
Looking about the room, there was only the three of them.
“We lost our human shields?” Doyle pursed his lips. “Pity.”
Morland pushed off the ground and got to his feet. “Hardly human.”
The next twenty minutes passed in a blur. After blasting through the barricade at the end of the hallway, Miller and Cobalt followed the barricades like breadcrumbs toward a lower level, where they found a sub-basement laboratory. Once they got there, however, it was as Miller feared.
The entire room, just like the second building, had been cleaned out, to the last paperclip. Even the cabinet knobs were missing. The lab, a mix of white Formica and rusted stainless steel, had been stripped to the bone.
Miller thrashed about looking for a flash-drive, a scrap of paper, something. He opened every drawer, scanned every nook and cranny—but they were too late. It was picked clean and barren.
“We didn’t miss them by much,” du Trieux said. “I can smell the disinfectant.”
Hsiung sighed and flapped her lips.
“Now what?” Morland rubbed his palm against the bump on his head.
Miller’s face grew hot and his hands balled into fists. Standing at the center of the lab, his frustration boiled over and he screamed at the top of his lungs with a primal fury, making everyone in the room jump. He kicked the air and punched at nothing, shouting at the top of his lungs indecipherable gibberish at full volume.
He didn’t know why he had expected to find anything. Nothing had gone their way since the moment Bob Harris had taken charge of the Astoria complex back in New York City, over a year ago. Why would their luck change now? The human race was cursed. Any time they had attempted to make progress, to inch toward any kind of improvement in their situation, they were met with battles against the environment, the wildlife, the Infected, or each other.
Fucking impossible. And no matter how much they fought, nothing was achieved. Fucking nothing.
; Miller bellowed in fury one last time.
What was the point?
They were losing. Fuck, they’d already lost. He knew he’d thought these things before; he’d think them again. He also knew that if he gave it enough time, he’d pick himself up off the floor and keep battling, because really, what choice did he have? But in that moment, on the floor of that empty laboratory on his knees, Miller pushed his palms onto the concrete floor and allowed himself to despair.
They were going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, inevitably, he would lose Cobalt, and the rest of the human race would follow. Lewis. Gray. He’d already lost James Matheson. They seemed to be the only humans even trying to save mankind, and they were failing. Badly.
Fuck this shit.
“Boss.” Doyle’s voice cut through Miller’s anguish. “We’ve got incoming.”
The first thought to go through his mind was Let them come, but the words wouldn’t pass his lips.
“We’ve got to go,” du Trieux said. Then, “Miller. Get up.”
Morland entered the room from the hallway; Miller hadn’t even noticed him leave. “There’s a whole squadron approaching from the west side of the building.”
“Can’t get out that way, then,” Doyle said.
“Can’t go back, either,” Hsiung pointed out. “There’s no way we’d clear the missing floor in that second building.”
“We could go up two flights,” du Trieux suggested.
“No, we stay in the basement,” Doyle said.
Morland frowned. “We’re trapped as it is.”
“Emergency exits,” Doyle said. “Look around. There’s got to be one around here someplace. Maybe to a parking garage, or a stairwell to street level?”
They moved quickly. Morland jogged out into the hallway. Du Trieux came up alongside Miller, her fingers nervously gripping and re-gripping her Gilboa Viper. “Miller.”
He nodded, pushing back up to crouch on the balls of his feet. His knees felt weak and his left hip was sore, but he stood of his own volition.