Dying to Live

by Roxy De Winter

In his corridor, Zack had quickly taken care of two wandering menaces. All that remained of their heads were ugly smears along the carpet. With that taken care of, everyone stopped to take in the room around them.

  This was not going to be the place where they found a suitable computer. It was impossible to know exactly what had happened, but a burned patch of carpet suggested a fire had caused the sprinklers to come on. Although the raining water had long since finished and the room had dried up, it’s after effects were evident. Wrinkled paper littered the floor; it crinkled in the irreversible way that it does after exposure to moisture. There were still some damp patches on the carpet where the puddles had formed and water stains discoloured the walls.

  “Lucy, will the whole block have been drenched?” Frank asked, flicking at some of the crinkled papers on one of the desks.

  “No. They try to protect the work done here as much as the people. The sprinklers only go off in the area of the fire,” she replied.

  “So we should check the other parts of the building then?” Pete asked her.

  “I only know the reception. I’m sorry,” Lucy told him glumly.

  Xin pulled the radio out again. “Bao, the reception is a lost cause, everything got wet in a fire. Can you see anywhere else in this building that we can look?”

  There was a cracking noise and then a voice. “There looks to be offices down the right hand hallway. You’ll have to follow it deep into the building; they’re quite a way in. Be careful, though. Those things are everywhere and we can’t tell if the offices are empty.”

  “Thanks, Bao. Over and out,” Xin said, before clipping the radio back again.

  The group headed down the corridor to the right. There were no doors along it until they got to the end of the hall and turned the corner. The hallway had one lone zombie swaying along it.

  “Don’t they usually hang with other zombies?” Pete asked, as Frank raised his handgun and shot it.

  “Look out! They’re coming up behind you!” A voice called out of the radio, just as they heard noises coming up fast in their wake. “Run!”

  Without thought, they all took off at full speed.

  “Get to the end of this hall!” Fiona yelled. “There are doors! if we make it through them we can shut them behind us.

  They pelted for the doors but the pounding footfalls they heard were not their own. Frank chanced a backwards glance and regretted it. Rounding the corner behind them was a group of ugly, ragged zombies. They filled the corridor from one side to the other, grimacing and blood-soaked. Many of the gaping mouths had blood caked and crusted around them and their clothes were torn and dirty.

  Too busy looking backwards as he tried to run, Frank tripped over a discarded book and went sprawling, face first into the floor.

  “Fuck!” He yelled in pain and tried to get to his feet. His ankle gave way beneath him.

  Lucy turned and saw Frank on the floor, the horde rapidly approaching, and squealed. Pete was already jogging back to help him.

  “Keep running!” Frank roared when he noticed that Lucy had stopped. She was torn between the man that she was starting to feel close to and her own freedom.

  “Come on!” Xin screamed, grabbing Lucy’s arm and dragging her along.

  Pete made it to Franks side and hauled him up.

  “Please tell me I don’t need to carry you. Can you put pressure on it?” He puffed, glancing back at the things that were almost on them.

  “I might be able to make it, come on!” Frank replied and forced himself forward. The pain was excruciating, but he told himself it would be a lot worse if the zombies caught up to them.

  They were heading forward at the fastest pace they could manage; Pete supporting Franks weight as much as he could and half dragging him along, but it wasn’t fast enough. Pete could almost feel the hands that were reaching out for his back.

  “MOVE!” It was Fiona. Since Frank had been focusing on his feet, and Pete on the approaching mob, neither had noticed Zack and his wife running back towards them. Zack took Frank’s other side and between the two men they practically carried him. Fiona took aim pumped off two shots into the oncoming crowd. As they stumbled over their fallen companions, Fiona turned and ran after the men whilst reloading. Then she fired the next two shots over her shoulder, barely slowing her run. The men made it to the door and Zack let Frank go. He turned and went back for his wife. Xin wanted to help, but her and Lucy were now waiting at the doors, ready to slam them shut.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion, like the winning moments of a race, but in reality it was mere seconds. Fiona and Zack sprinted through the doors and Xin and Lucy sprang into action, flinging the doors shut behind them. Moments later, the pursuing zombies slammed against them.

  “Help!” Lucy yelled.

  “We can’t hold this!” Xin panicked.

  Pete rushed forward to add his weight to the doors, followed by Fiona and Zack. The doors shook beneath the violent volley of bodies crashing against them. Frank limped forwards, having seen something the others had missed.

  “Hold them steady, I’ll get the bolts!” Frank shouted over the din of rattling doors and ravenous, moaning zombies.

  It took a concerted effort, but eventually a bolt at the top and bottom of each door was secured. It wouldn’t be enough to keep them out but it bought them some time.

  “Look for something we can block it with!” Zack urged.

  They were in what looked like a recreation room, maybe used for break times. All there really was in the room was tables and chairs, but the tables were bolted down and the chairs too flimsy.

  “Frank, help me push that drinks machine over here!” Fiona called, leaving the others to hold the door. She dropped her gun onto one of the tables and assisted Frank over to the machine. Luckily, it was on the same wall as the doors and was a straight push.

  With the machine to lean against, frank was able to brace his good foot against the floor and push with his shoulders. It wasn’t too hard to move, and with both of them using all their strength it slid steadily closer.

  “Wait, the cables are stopping it!” Fiona rushed back and yanked them from the wall, before hurrying back and pushing it the rest of the way.

  “Okay, ready?” Fiona asked, preparing for the last push that would knock it to the ground in front of the door. “On three.”

  Zack, Lucy, Xin and Pete prepared themselves to get out of the way and fast.

  “One...” Frank readied himself to push as hard as he could.

  “Two...” Fiona braced her shoulders against the drinks machine.

  “THREE!” She bawled, and they both pushed as hard as they could. The others jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the machine, as it toppled over and crashed to the ground.

  “Brilliant,” Pete panted. “Now what?”

  Most of the group were leant against walls or bent double, still trying to gather themselves after the scare. Lucy kissed Frank’s cheek as she hugged him. Relief flooded through her, before she remembered his injury and forced him into a seat so that she could check his ankle.

  “Now,” Frank sighed, running a hand across his brow. “We need to get this computer and get the hell out of dodge.”

  “Oh yeah,” Pete smirked sarcastically. “That’s what we came down here for, isn’t it? Damn, I thought it was just for the workout.”

  “Har har,” Frank offered a fake laugh and grinned. “I can’t believe you thought you’d have to carry me.”

  “I did!”

  “Guys, come on. How are you making jokes right now?” Lucy sounded exasperated but her expression was disbelieving.

  “Alright.” Frank looked apologetically at her. “So how are we going to do this?”

  “It should be easy enough, what with you barely being able to walk,” Pete said.

  “Hey, why are you complaining? If I get eaten while we’re out here, it will be a great distraction for you guys to get away,” Frank chuckled half-heartedly.<
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  “Yeah, the zombies will love you now.” Pete strolled over and clapped Frank on the back. “It’s fast food that they hate.”

  “Seriously?” Lucy rolled her eyes, but the others couldn’t contain their snorts of laughter.

  “In all seriousness, mate, nobody is getting eaten out here,” Pete added seriously.

  “Damn right!” Lucy asserted.

  When the team had recovered and Lucy had offered her assessment of Frank’s ankle, (“It’s just a sprain. You’ll need to rest it when we get back.”) Xin radioed back to the cabin.

  “Bao, I don’t know how much of that you saw but we’re okay. Frank hurt his ankle but we’re safe for now.”

  “Yes, we saw it all. That was quite a close call,” Bao’s response crackled over the airwave.

  “We need to know where to go now. Can you see anywhere?” Xin asked.

  “Well, you ran past all of the offices and I’m sure you don’t want to go back the way you came.” Bao’s response for some reason infuriated Xin.

  “We didn’t have a great deal of time to stop and check them.” Xin did a poor job of hiding her irritation.

  “I know, I know. None the less, we cannot see much more of the building you are in. I would suggest that you head out via the fire exit and look for another building.” His calmness was winding Xin up further.

  “That’s very helpful, thank you. Over and out,” She said sharply into the receiver. “Can someone please take this from me?” She asked the others, holding it out in front of her. Fiona stepped forward and took the radio from her, attaching it to her own belt.

  “Let’s try and keep calm,” Pete said, his phrasing encompassed the whole group but he spoke the words to Xin.

  She sighed in response. “It’s just Bao’s manner. It rubs me up the wrong way when he’s like that and it always has. It’s easy for him, he just gets to watch us struggle. Then when he could be useful, he would rather be condescending and patronising than just help.”

  “I don’t want to be insensitive, Xin, but I really don’t think this is the right time to go into it. We should get out of here,” Zack looked over to the fire exit. The door behind them was still rattling but it wasn’t going to give way any time soon. The close proximity to the dead was disconcerting, though. He wanted to be away from it and heading back to his family with his wife as soon as possible.

  In the end they decided to take Bao’s advice and leave through the double-doored emergency exit. There was concern voiced amongst them that they could trigger some kind of alarm but, for the first time on this reconnaissance, their luck held out. When Zack pushed the release bar of the door and threw it open, the air remained unpolluted by any wailing sirens. The exit opened up onto a large, bare, concrete lot with two large hangars looming at the far end of it.

  “Lucy, would either of those hangars have a computer?” Xin asked her, as they peered from the doorway.

  “It depends if they’re just storage hangars or if someone works in them and has some kind of desk area in there,” Lucy said. “We should go and see.”

  “Okay, let’s go then,” Xin said, her mouth set in a determined line.

  The lot was thankfully deserted when the group stepped out into it. Zack had taken Frank’s bag, seeing as it would be difficult for him to carry anything back for them now. Frank was instead toting Zack’s shotgun and being helped along by Lucy. Crossing the area to the hangars was slow going. It was a lot further than it had seemed when they first spotted the giant structures. Their guarded lookout, coupled with Franks limping pace, meant that it took them a while to finally reach the enormous, sheet metal doors. When they approached, Lucy left Frank’s side and made a bee line for a small mounted box beside the door.

  “I’ve fixed so many of these things that this is going to give me great pleasure,” Lucy sighed happily, flipping open the coverings of a small control keypad. She pulled the machete from its sheath at her side and slotted the blade into a small ridge along the side of the keypad. By applying pressure at just the right spot, Lucy popped the panel of buttons right off, exposing a mess of cables beneath.

  “There is something weirdly sexy about watching her do this,” Frank whispered to Pete. Pete looked at him and raised his eyebrow.

  “Green... Red... Blue,” Lucy muttered under her breath as she pulled cables loose. After a little tinkering, she smiled. “Ready?”

  “As ever,” Pete nodded, looking around at the others who drew their weapons.

  “Okay, open sesame,” she said, using the machete to cut one brown cable. There was a rumble and then a low, metallic screeching as the massive door slowly rolled aside.

  Frank ambled up from the back of the group to stand beside her. “You’re pretty incredible, you know?” He joked with her quietly. She didn’t reply but a smile crept across her face.

  When the door was fully open and had settled to a halt, the fluorescent tube lighting kicked in inside and Frank let out a long whistle.

  “Wow! Check her out,” he said, eyeing the aircraft in front of them. “She’s a beauty.”

  “She’s an airborne early warning and control sentry,” Lucy corrected. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

  Franks face drooped with disappointment.

  “I’ll go and check that the hangar’s clear,” Fiona volunteered.

  “I’ll come with you,” Pete told her. The pair disappeared inside, and after a quick lap of the interior they emerged.

  “Well, it’s clear, and it looks like there some kind of booth at the back,” Fiona clarified.

  “That’s what we’re looking for but there’s no point us all going. No sense in dragging Frank inside just to come back out. I’ll go, and Pete and Zack can fetch the bags,” Lucy said firmly. “You guys should keep an eye out.”

  Once Lucy, Zack and Pete had made it to the booth at the far end of the hangar, they looked at each other, silently praying that they would find what they were looking for. How hard could it possibly be to find a working computer in a government facility, in the day and age where they were used for everything?

  Lucy reached out and pushed the door open. Inside was a long, wooden desk stacked with papers and surrounded by filing cabinets. The wall above the desk had photos of a smiling family pinned to it, and stood on the desk was a small trophy that said ‘world’s greatest dad’. They did not escape Pete’s notice and he willed himself not to linger on them.

  “SCORE!” Lucy shrieked victoriously. She leapt at the laptop that she had spotted, half buried under a mess of paperwork and a book with a diagram of a fighter jet on the cover. She grabbed it and raised it happily over her head like a prize.

  “Careful, Luce,” Pete warned. “Let’s not break it before we get it back.”

  “We should check that it even works first,” Zack pointed out. “We don’t want to get back and find out that it doesn’t. If it does, we need to find the cable for it.”

  “No problem,” Lucy said, lowering the laptop and pointing at a cable trailing from a plug under the desk. “As for whether it works...” She carried on, resting the laptop against her hip and flipping it open. She pushed the power button and after a moment there was a chiming noise and the login screen appeared. Lucy smiled and turned the screen to show them.

  “And we’ll have no problems logging on?” Pete asked.

  “Nah,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I have my log on details and if they don’t work I know a bypass for guest logins.”

  “Awesome. Put that in here then and let’s get out of here,” Zack said, holding his bag open for her and cracking a genuine smile for the first time since his father’s death.

  When they re-joined Xin, Fiona and Frank with the laptop stashed safely in the hold-all hanging from Zack’s shoulder, they indulged their happiness with a quick round of high fives.

  “We should let the others know back at the shack,” Pete told Fiona.

  “On it,” she nodded and tugged the radio from her belt. “Hey, ar
e you there?” She asked into the receiver.

  “You bet,” the response rattled out. “It’s me, Harry. Dr Yuan was pretty convinced that Xin had had enough of him for now.”

  Xin hung her head guiltily, but thought that it served the old man right if he was a little upset.

  “We got a working laptop; we just need to get back now,” she informed him.

  “Great news,” Harry said. “We can’t find you on the monitor at the moment, where are you?”

  “We’re by two large aircraft hangars at the back of the 4B building,” Fiona answered.

  “Okay, it doesn’t look like any of the feeds cover that area, but if you head over to 4A we have a clear run. The cameras cover all the way from there to the road near the car park you’re in,” Harry offered.

  “Sounds good. We’ll check in when we get there. Over and out.”

  One good thing that they noted about the part of Area 51 that they were seeing was that it was clearly sign posted. The signs didn’t reveal what each building was, but locating 4A was going to be easy enough. They headed diagonally back across the lot to a walkway that led back to the road. A group of five zombies were weaving along it, their backs turned on the gang of survivors. They were going the same way that the group needed to go. Two of them were females who seemed to be badly burned, and another one was a male missing an arm. The other two were unmistakeably soldiers, still clad in their camouflage combat gear and carrying their machine guns.

  “We could use those weapons,” Frank said in hushed tones, nodding towards the pair.

  “We’ll have to take them out anyway. We’re heading that way,” Pete stated.

  “It looks easy enough. If we can come up quietly behind them, we can pop them before they even know we’re there,” Zack said, talking mainly to Pete.

  “Okay then. We go steady and quietly,” Pete told everyone.

  With that, they stepped out onto the road with their weapons at the ready. As they got closer and closer they could smell the sickly stench of dead flesh.

  Lucy thought that she recognised the one armed man. She was growing more certain that it was Martin Hoffman. Martin had helped her out with any I.T and computer programming problems that she ran across during her repair jobs. She craned her neck to see if she could get a better view and see his face. Whilst she wasn’t paying attention to her feet she accidentally kicked a small pebble, which went skipping away, clattering along the dusty asphalt and hitting the one armed man’s in the back of the leg. He groaned and turned drunkenly to look at the ground by his feet. Slowly, his gaze lifted and his eyes met Lucy’s. Then she was sure of it, it was Martin. She let out a gasp and Martin’s eyes seemed to light up. He began to salivate and growl excitedly. This caused the other four creatures to turn and lock onto the group trailing along behind them.