Slow Burn (Book 9): Sanctum

by Bobby Adair

  “Anything they can eat right out of the can.”

  I asked, “Can’t you eat everything right out of the can?”

  Grace looked at me, puzzled. “I suppose.” She started searching through the remains of flour, sugar, beans, and rice that had been stacked on a couple of pallets and shredded by the Whites. “Everything is mixed up.”

  “Maybe there’s a bag of flour down in the pile that isn’t open.”

  Grace continued to dig.

  I found where the canvas grocery bags had fallen to the floor, and I pulled several out and shook them off. They all had big looped handles, and I slid one up my arm and wrapped the handle over my shoulder. I moved around, trying the bag on for size. If I didn’t put too much in the bag, I might be able to carry one over each shoulder and still keep my weapons in hand. It would make for awkward movement, but I liked the idea better than going out with a bag in one hand rather than a knife.

  Grace stopped digging through the mess on the pallets and started looking through the cans and boxes on the floor.

  I put a grocery bag on my other shoulder and turned around to face Grace. “What do you think? Stylish?”

  She laughed and put a hand over her mouth to keep the sound in. “You look like an idiot.”

  I grinned. “But it’s functional, right?” I waved my machete and knife to demonstrate.

  “Hey.”

  “What?” I tensed.

  Grace knelt on the floor, reached down, and lifted a clear plastic jug full of something white. “Baking powder. We don’t need the flour. This will be perfect.”

  I stepped closer. “Is there another one?”

  Grace found a second jug.

  I tossed her a grocery bag, and she loaded them in. “You think two will be enough?”

  “We can make another trip if we need more.”

  It took a few more minutes to get our food loaded up along with our baking powder for dusting the academics in white before taking them out of the veterinary sciences building. Just before we left, I asked, “Do they have an armory in here?”

  Grace pointed down. “On the first floor.”

  “You think we should go down and pick up a couple of guns and some ammo, just in case?”

  Grace shook her head, deciding instantly.

  “I’m not saying it’ll do any good in the long run,” I explained. “I was just thinking they might feel—I don’t know—hopeful, having a weapon in hand.”

  “I think putting a loaded gun in their hands is a mistake,” she countered. “They haven’t been out among the infected like you and I have. We’ve seen enough people learn the hard way that noise draws the infected in. With the naked horde everywhere, if one of the academics gets nervous and fires, then they’re all dead—all of them—whether they’re hidden in a stockroom, walking across the campus, or in their new hiding place.”

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “Let’s just take what we’ve got.” I pushed the door open and peeked into the hall. Nothing but the Whites far down, still eating. I led the way out and crossed over to the stairwell, opened the door slightly to listen, peek inside, and proceeded. It was clear as far as I could tell. Grace followed me silently down the stairs, avoiding the slipperiest spots where the blood was thick and hadn’t yet dried.

  At the bottom floor, we paused again at the door that led out of the building. I pushed it open a little and listened. No unexpected sounds. I opened it wide enough to slip through and stepped out with Grace right behind.

  She gasped and froze.

  My machete was immediately up as my head snapped right, then left, looking for the danger.

  She nudged me with her elbow and pointed across the grass.

  A line of jogging Whites, twenty or thirty of them, was winding its way toward us. The first White in the line had a full sleeve tattoo on his left arm, and was looking right at me.

  “Motherfucker!” I pushed Grace back inside.

  Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

  I should have killed that fucker in the pantry. He was a Smart One. He was smart enough to play docile and stupid when he saw my machete, and now he’d rounded up some of his motherfucking naked White buddies to come and get us.

  Dammit.

  “What do you think?” Grace asked, urgently.

  I shrugged the grocery bags off my shoulders, and bounded over to tuck them beneath the staircase. I planned to pick them up later, tattoo-sleeve asshole Smart One or not. “Leave your stuff there with mine.” I pointed up the stairs. “Run. Back to two.”

  Grace shook her head. “That’s stupid. They’ll find us.”

  “Go.”

  I bounded up the stairs after Grace. At the landing, she wanted to continue up, but I stretched an arm out to stop her. I whispered, “Go up if you want to. I’m going to make my stand on two.”

  “Not even you can kill them all, Zed. Not with a knife and a machete.”

  “I don’t need to kill them all. I just need to kill one.”

  “What if they don’t come to two? What if they don’t fall into whatever stupid little trap you’re planning?”

  “That’s why I want you with me,” I told her. “I don’t want them to skip over two and find you first. I know you can’t kill them all, either.”

  Grace closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and huffed. She looked at me with a steely glare. “You better not fuck this up.”

  We ran onto the second floor just as the Whites slammed into the outer door at the bottom of the stairs.

  Chapter 30

  Across the hall from the commissary, I swung the door open on a room full of supplies that I glanced at too quickly to identify. Nothing moved. That was the important thing. I pointed and told Grace, “Inside.”

  Grace resisted. She wasn’t one to take orders. She wasn’t one to shirk. “Whatever you have in mind, we’ll do it together.”

  I shoved her through the doorway. “No time.”

  Whites were running up the stairs. They were in pursuit mode and the Smart One had worked them into a hunting frenzy.

  I looked Grace in the eye and said, “Another person won’t help. Don’t risk yourself for no reason. But get inside or do exactly what I do or you’ll kill us both.” I spun around, planning my next move, leaving it up to her to choose.

  A white-skinned corpse, one of dozens in the hall, lay just feet away. I dropped to my knees beside it, sliced its belly open with my knife and tucked my machete beneath its leg. With my empty hand, I scooped a palm full of blood and splashed it over my head. I scooped more, drenching my skull and face in dripping red. I shoved the hand with my knife gripped tight into the gaping wound, burying my fist in the decedent's innards. The knife punctured the intestine, releasing a fume of stink. I reached under the leg and grabbed the handle of my machete and lowered my face to the wound to pretend like I was feeding.

  The door to the room where I tersely told Grace to hide clicked closed with her inside. She’d made the right decision.

  The door to the stairwell swung open, and the tattooed Smart One ran onto the floor with his troupe of rabid White monkeys in tow. He sprinted straight for the door to the pantry, grabbed it and swung it open. The Whites fell over one another pouring into the room, screaming for blood as they did.

  When the last of them passed inside, the Smart One held the door wide and stepped around to get a view of the coming mayhem. His back was toward me. And why not? At the moment I was just another cannibal feeding on a dead brother. He was hunting two loquacious Slow Burns.

  I pulled my legs beneath me so I could pounce—the sound of my feet sliding across the messy floor must have seemed odd to the Smart One because he turned to look, confident and slow.

  Too bad for him that his earlier skittishness had been an act. Otherwise, he'd have dodged away from the unexpected sound and might have had a chance.

  I jumped as I raised my machete high.

  His eyes went wide, and the tattooed arm came up to block my blade.

  Silly
White. That never works.

  My machete came down with all the force I could bring to bear.

  His tattooed forearm separated and spun through the air. His bald White skull split down through the forehead to the bridge of the nose and blood exploded from the wound. His body stiffened. His eyes turned dead glassy, and his mouth froze. That fucking asshole of a Smart One was dead, and he fell over with my machete jammed in his cranium.

  Null Spot, motherfucker!

  With his dead hand off the doorknob he'd been holding, the door closed, for the moment, trapping his new posse. They were busy denting cans with pretty labels and knocking over shelves. They didn't notice the door.

  I stepped on tattoo boy’s face and pressed his head to the floor with my foot as I wrenched my machete free.

  I heard a noise behind me, and I swung my blade as I turned, ready to cleave whatever it was sneaking up from behind to do to me what I'd just done to tattoo boy.

  Grace's eyes went wide, and she froze in the open door.

  My machete and body were carrying too much momentum to stop, so I redirected up, burying my blade in the side of the thick, wooden door above her head. The loud thunk got the attention of the feeding Whites down the hall. They all stared.

  Grace blinked, caught her breath, and stepped into the hall beside me. She brandished her knives at the Whites up the corridor, and I guess they decided she was too badass to fuck with. They went back to eating.

  I wrenched my blade out of the door, looked at Grace, and nodded toward the stairwell door.

  She ran. I followed.

  We collected our bags at the bottom of the stairs, and exited the building, taking care to stay behind the bushes that had concealed us when we'd first arrived. We made our way to the end of the building and paused to take a good look around before exposing ourselves. Of course, we were white-skinned and naked, but carelessness was what got people killed more than anything else. We were alive because we'd developed good habits for staying that way in a world full of unpredictable predators.

  Grace gently grabbed my arm just as I was about to step out of the bushes.

  I looked at her and mouthed a silent, "What?” I snapped a look all around me to see what I'd missed.

  “Sorry,” she said softly.

  “For what?”

  “I thought you were trying to be a hero. I didn’t know you had a plan.”

  “I always have a plan.” It was only half a lie.

  She tapped her temple with her finger. “But you have that hero thing going. You know that, right?”

  I nodded. Everybody knew that about me. It was a terminal character flaw I'd managed to live with. So far.

  “I almost ruined it. I almost got us both killed.”

  I stepped closer to the wall of the building and looked over the bushes for listening ears and white skin. None. “We haven’t done this kind of thing together enough to know each other. We don’t have that teamwork thing yet. You don’t know to trust me fully, yet. You think I’m a half-cocked whack job.” I smiled, even though I was starting to wonder how much that last part was pure truth. “I’m still alive. I’m good at what I do. Murphy and me, we’re good at it together because we trust each other. Like you and Jazz, I know what to expect from him and he knows what to expect from me.”

  “But you didn’t bring Murphy with you.” She looked at me hard, searching for a deeper truth than I was admitting.

  Why not put it all on the table? “I think maybe Murphy is coming to the end of what he can deal with.”

  “Murphy?” Grace looked across the street to the veterinary science building. “Murphy seems like he’s adjusted to this better than anybody.”

  “Maybe he’s finding his limit. I don’t know. He said some things.”

  “Like?”

  “Stuff. I’m worried about him now. I think maybe I’ve dragged him through too much shit.”

  Grace laughed. “Everything isn’t about you, Zed. We all have to deal with this world whether you’re around to make it worse or not.”

  “Worse?” That hurt. It was bad enough when I thought it. It was painful when someone else said it.

  “Sorry.” Grace put a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

  I stepped out of the bushes. “You ready to go?” I jogged toward the street, knowing Grace would follow but not looking back to make sure she did.

  Chapter 31

  Things had gone well in the veterinary sciences building. Murphy had to kill a pair of Whites working their way up the stairs. They’d probably heard the professors making too much noise and were hoping for a meal. I guess even Whites’ plans tended to go awry.

  The academics had emptied the stockroom of most of the boxes, jars, and old, useless junk that it had accumulated through the years. Instead, they stored what they could of their work and the work of their dead colleagues, notebooks, samples, and whatnot. Getting those things together in a safe place seemed to be more important to them than their personal safety, though more than half of them had taken the time to scavenge weapons from their dead defenders. That was a problem.

  Everybody got something to eat and drink. They took care of their personal business and then it was time for the hard part. Dr. Oaks got everyone’s attention. He held up one of the jugs of baking powder. “For this to work, we all need to strip naked and cover ourselves with this.”

  Some mumbled. A few disagreed more loudly.

  “Here’s the deal,” I told them in a voice that carried over their unhappy bitching. “First off, don’t be a prick. Lots of people died trying to keep you alive. I know you appreciate it but if you’ve got a better idea, be constructive about it, bring it up, don’t complain pointlessly.” I looked them over. “Anything?”

  None of the grumblers looked at me.

  “Okay. I don’t know if this is going to work. Feel free to stay in the storeroom if you want. The rest of us are leaving.” I glanced at Murphy and Grace. Jazz was out of sight somewhere. But it was clear to the academics who I was talking about. “Any of you who want to come along can—naked, covered in baking powder. It’s dark outside. As long as you don’t speak when you’re out there or do anything to bring attention to yourselves, like carry a gun, you’ll probably be okay. If you want your gun, stay here. You’re not coming with us.”

  One of the grumblers raised his weapon, not pointed at anyone, but showing it to all of us. “We can’t even defend ourselves.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to get into it again.

  “How many bullets do you have in there?” Grace asked him.

  “Six.” He patted the magazine on the rifle.

  “How many infected do you think are out there?” she pressed. “Are you going to kill them all with six bullets?”

  Murphy laughed.

  “If you shoot,” I told him, “then you’ll all die. That’s it. That’s the simple fact. One shot will bring every White who can hear it down on you. That’s the way it works out there. They know the only things that use guns are uninfected people. The Whites always come when shots are fired, always. Guns are the absolute last resort.”

  “And if they attack us out there?” the grumbler asked.

  It’s hard to convince people to change their mind to a proven truth from a strongly held belief.

  “If they attack just you,” I said, “or any one or two of us,” I brandished my machete. “We’ll do what we can. But we’ll probably just leave you to save the rest.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It is. But we don’t get to make the rules anymore. We live in their world now. Their rules. And it sucks. So if you get behind, if you get separated, if you get attacked, then whisper your prayers to yourself and take one for the team. If you start hollering for help, the rest of the Whites will come running faster than you can imagine. You’ll get everyone killed.”

  Silence.

  I let them stew for a few seconds before I continued. “I told you, i
t sucks. But it’s a take-it-or-leave-it deal. Accept the rules or stay here. We’ll leave in five minutes.”

  I walked away, not going anywhere, just pretending like I had things to do so I wouldn’t have to entertain any belated questions. Grace walked up beside me. Murphy came along behind.

  "You come across well in front of people,” she said. "Sometimes people, even people with PhDs, just want to be told what to do."

  "Thanks.” I was still pissed at her but didn't want to seem like I was pouting. I looked up at Murphy. "What do you think?"

  He shoved the head of a corpse with his foot—just fidgeting—as he gave the question a thought. “We need to do something. We can’t stay here.”

  “Not the endorsement I was hoping for.” I sighed.

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad.” Murphy grinned.

  I couldn’t tell if it was a real grin or the fake one.

  He said, "It's as good a plan as any. Hell, better than most. I never thought about that baking powder thing. As long as we don't get close to any Whites, I can't see why they'd bother us."

  "And we're not going far,” said Grace, looking back at Dr. Oaks, who was talking with someone else. "He said the food service commissary is down the road three blocks, going away from campus. Good sized building. No windows. Only a few doors. We could be safe there—safer there than anywhere else we can think of for the moment.”

  “Let’s hope so.” I looked at them both. “We need to do this single-file and run in one of those stupid helix patterns like they do. Emphasize that to everyone before we go out the door, okay? We need to sell this to the Whites outside.”

  “Will do,” said Murphy.

  “Of course,” Grace added.

  “I’ll lead,” I told them. “I’ll keep it slow. I don’t want to lose Dr. Oaks by jogging too fast.”

  “I’m worried about him,” said Grace. “I don’t know if he can even run. And that other old guy.” She pointed. “If he dropped on the ground and died on the way, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “What do you want to do then?” I asked.

  “Put the slowest ones at the rear,” she said.