With the light fading, it was decided that the group would split up and go to separate buildings. Becks would be part of one team with Julian, The Monk, and several of his people, while the others would form the second team. Yes, there was strength in numbers, but every minute counted if Project Decimation was going to stand a chance. Digger would remain behind and guard the vehicles, in case there were any scavengers in the area.
There was just no way the massive New York City herd could be allowed to disperse throughout the Hudson Valley and Northern New Jersey. Everything they had all worked so hard to rebuild would be lost again. The military just didn’t have the personnel and firepower to take out the entire herd. There was some talk about possibly using a small, tactical nuke, but that was the last resort, as the area didn’t need radiation concerns on top of everything else. After all, it was the Fukushima radiation that initiated the zombie apocalypse in the first place. Becks was unaware that the top brass had put the nuclear option on the table, which was probably for the best, as she had more than enough to worry about at the moment.
The doors to both buildings were locked and groups of zombies in lab coats and Tyvek suits had gathered up against them, due to the noise and movement outside. Discussion about how best to enter the buildings and dispatch the zombies safely was rudely interrupted when Becks drove her Humvee in front of the entrance to the first building and squeezed off some glass and bone-shattering rounds from the .50 cal.
“There you go,” Becks shouted to the two teams, unable to suppress a huge grin. “No doors, no zombies.”
She then drove over to the second building and had even more fun, as the crowd of zombies she shredded there was even larger.
“That’s my girl!” The Monk said and then kissed the top of her head and ruffled her hair when she rejoined the team. “Now let’s go help save humanity… Again.”
The Monk and his people moved like well–oiled machines, as they had the technique of clearing buildings down to a science. As they were looking for very specific items, doors that didn’t need to be opened stayed closed. Fortunately, there were only a few stragglers here and there; once young, vibrant students pursuing groundbreaking research in what was still a relatively new science, who were now reduced to mindless, wandering corpses.
There was one Asian boy who stood out from the rest. As Becks dispatched him with her combat knife, she noticed he was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Nanotechnology: Size Matters.” Normally, she would have laughed, except that this boy couldn’t have been more than 19 when he switched, and she was now wiping bits of his brain and eye jelly off her blade onto that T-shirt.
She would never say this out loud—and certainly not in the present company—but it always hurt her more to kill zombies like this. Scientists, doctors, and engineers were the best and brightest who were supposed to lead the world to a better future for the next generation. Unfortunately, the ZIPs didn’t know a brilliant brain from someone as dumb as a post. ZIPs were equal opportunity parasites. To them, the gray matter of DaVinci and a window washer were interchangeable.
There was little resistance finding the first lab they were looking for on the second floor. The Monk’s people had thought to bring lightweight, folding shopping and luggage carts, and quickly began filling them as the two doctors pointed out what needed to be transported. The labs had been greatly expanded, and contained a lot of new equipment since Becks had been there. The video coms were sketchy, but they were able to contact Pete at West Point on two occasions to ask questions.
While the other people from Cam’s compound did all the running back and forth to the vehicles to load everything, The Monk stuck to Becks like glue, from floor to floor and lab to lab.
“Cam told you not to let me out of your sight, didn’t he?” Becks whispered when they were apart from the others for a moment.
“Why would Cam say that?” The Monk replied awkwardly.
For all of his abilities, and past criminal activities, he was a terrible liar. Becks was about to reply, when gunfire erupted at the end of the corridor. Dropping everything, they ran toward the far end of the long hallway and found two team members and Julian firing into a large pack of zombies. There were dozens of them, and no one knew where they came from, or how many more were on their way. They were dressed in lab gear, as well as maintenance and security uniforms, so they were from the college. They must have been in the cafeteria or an auditorium, and had been drawn out by the sounds.
“Get back,” Becks shouted. “Take what you have and get the hell out of here!”
Becks pointed toward the other end of the corridor, and added that they had gotten most of what they needed and it wasn’t worth risking it any further with so many zombies, and it was getting dark rapidly. Julian didn’t need to be told twice to retreat, and Becks was surprised at just how fast he could run in all that combat gear, while carrying a big box of chemicals.
Becks raced back into the last lab she was in to grab a bag stuffed with supplies she had packed, and when she ran back into the corridor, she found The Monk doubled over on the floor, popping a few pills into the back of his throat.
“Monk! What happened!?” she yelled, searching him for wounds, wondering if he had been hit by a ricocheting bullet.
“Go on, Becks…Get out with the others,” The Monk said between labored breaths, in obvious pain, as he pushed her away with one of his massive hands. “I just need a minute…I’ll be right behind you.”
“Like hell! I’m not leaving you,” Becks stated with firm resolve. “And I don’t think we have a minute. What’s going on?”
The herd of former college students and employees had reached the top of the stairs and was making a beeline for them.
“Just a cramp,” The Monk lied poorly again. “Now get your pretty ass out of here.”
Becks didn’t respond to him and instead got on the com and declared an emergency. She needed help carrying The Monk—a lot of help—and she needed it ASAP. Julian replied that they couldn’t make it back, as they were cut off by another herd coming down the other stairwell. They had just gotten out in the nick of time. The Ranger also replied that his team had their own troubles—which was emphasized by Martha screeching obscenities in the background in between gunshots—and would need at least ten minutes to get there.
The herd to Becks’ right was less than 100 feet away, and she just glimpsed the tops of the heads of the other herd to their left as they began descending the staircase to their floor. They didn’t have enough ammunition to kill all the zombies, and there was no way Becks could single-handedly fight them off with her knife in such close quarters and in such dim light.
“Monk, for god’s sake, what the fuck is going on? The truth! Now!” Becks shouted, trying to drag him into the lab. She would just have to barricade the door and hope the combined firepower of all the others could clear the corridor.
“The Big C,” The Monk replied, wincing. “Pancreas, liver, you name it. Found out a couple of months ago. My concoction of pain pills had been helping, but not so much anymore.”
Becks had no words, she just hugged him. But there would be plenty of time for sympathy later—now she had to get them to safety.
“No, stop!” The Monk protested, as Becks tried to pull him a few more feet. “You have to get out of here.”
“Well, that isn’t exactly an option right now,” Becks replied, even though she would never consider leaving him behind even if she had a way out.
“Yes, it is,” The Monk said, mustering all his remaining strength and energy to get to his feet and raise his automatic weapon, which he used to blast the glass out of one of the large windows.
“That’s way too far to jump,” Becks stated, glancing down to the concrete several stories below. The Monk pulled a bright yellow loop of rope from his belt and started wrapping one end around Becks’ chest, and then under her arms.
She continued to argue, still not comprehending The Monk’s plan, as she fired a few sho
ts into the zombies who had drawn dangerously close on both sides. Then suddenly Becks felt everything spinning. The Monk had lifted her up sideways and was preparing to drop her head-first out the window. She yelled for him to stop, but he had already tied the other end of the rope around his waist and was determined to save her, at any cost.
Becks tried to grab the window frame, but it was too late, and she dropped ten feet before the rope yanked tight under her arms and she was jerked to a stop.
“Monk, no, pull me back!” she screamed. “Please, pull me back!”
In the flashes of lightning, she could see that several zombies had already reached him, but despite the onslaught of bite wounds he was now receiving across his body, The Monk held fast to the rope and began to lower her slowly and safely to the ground. Digger, Julian, and some of the others gathered below and aimed for The Monk’s attackers, but no one had a clear shot as the zombies swarmed over him. Becks could hear The Monk shouting a string of profanities—until he started chanting something in a foreign language. Becks imagined it was some Tibetan death prayer, and tears and rainwater streamed down her cheeks.
Then the chanting stopped and she started dropping quickly. Bracing for impact, she stopped fifteen feet above the concrete. Grabbing her combat knife, she reached above her head and cut the rope–but only after holding onto that rope as if it was The Monk’s hand, and sending a prayer to him through it. Digger caught Becks as she fell, and he asked if she wanted them all go in to try to help The Monk, but she just shook her head and whispered that it was too late, as she turned her back and walked away.
Becks didn’t want to look back up to that window. She couldn’t bear to see zombies slurping a tasty morsel of The Monk’s flesh. She wanted to get the Humvee and pour lead into that section of the corridor and kill them all, but what would that accomplish?
The Monk’s people were also devastated by the loss of their beloved leader and friend, and they all silently went back to the vehicles. The other team joined them in a few minutes, a little battered and bloodied, but all intact. No one asked any questions, as they understood what had happened.
On the long trip back, Becks decided she would be adding one more tattoo to her arm, one of an angel—a very large, shaggy-looking guardian angel.
Chapter 16
“Loneliness corrodes the soul,” Joanna Gilchrest often thought, and she had a lot of time to think. She had lost her three young children in the early days of infection. Her husband had been killed by scavengers a few months after quarantine. Like the majority of other Americans, she had no idea what happened to her parents, two sisters, brother, and their families, and various other relatives and friends across the country. When the phone, Internet, and mail systems collapsed, our once tightly interconnected world instantly became one of isolation. No one could have prepared for, or imagined, how cruel that loneliness would be.
For a time, Joanna survived with the mutual cooperation of several neighbors. They made weapons to fight the zombies, scrounged for supplies, planted a garden, and generally went about their business as if they were the last people on earth. But Frank was a 57-year-old diabetic and when his medication ran out, so did his life. Felisha was bitten—not by zombies, but by a tiny tick, of all things. She developed a high fever, went into renal failure, and died at age 38. Lance broke his leg when a tree he was cutting down for firewood fell on him. Without proper medical attention, a blood clot cost him his life. Then there had been Evelyn and Edward, a typical suburban couple, who decided that a murder/suicide pact was the only way to end the constant horror.
So now it was just Joanna, somehow managing to stay alive in her home near the Palisades Interstate Parkway in New Jersey. She had no idea that civilization had begun to return to the Hudson Valley, but even if she had, she was so entrenched in her loneliness and misery, she probably wouldn’t have made an effort to reconnect with a new community. She had lost so much—in fact, everything—that complete isolation was the only way she could cope. While alone, Joanna didn’t have to react to anyone, explain herself, or justify her willing submission to hopelessness. It really wasn’t living, but it wasn’t death, either, and that had to count for something.
Now things had changed, however. As she sat in her favorite chair—the one her great-grandfather had made for her great-grandmother as a wedding present—and looked out through the slits of the boarded-up front window, she saw a sea of zombie faces passing by. There was someone in a heavily soiled white lab coat who might have been a doctor, or had he been a butcher? There were women with long tangled masses of hair with leaves and sticks stuck in them. There were very tall zombies and very short zombies, fighting to see above their taller companions. There had to be a thousand of the undead creatures surrounding her home and she couldn’t begin to comprehend why there were so many, and why now?
Had she actually died and gone to hell? Poking a steak knife into the back of her hand convinced Joanna that she was still very much alive, but a bigger question now loomed—did she want to continue living like this, unable to go outside? How long could she survive on her limited supplies? She had no more prayers for a god she had been convinced long ago did not exist. She couldn’t remember the voices of her own children. She had no hope of, well, no hope of anything.
For the time being, though, she would sit in that family heirloom chair and stare at the massive herd as they knocked down her fences, trampled her gardens, and pressed against the sides of her house like a surge of water from a hurricane. It was a zombie storm for sure, and if they did manage to somehow get into her home, the question of her very existence would quickly resolve itself.
Word of The Monk’s death reached West Point before Becks returned, sparing her having to break the news to Cam. It was a terrible blow. Cam cried like a baby and didn’t care who saw him. In this one death, Cam had lost his best friend, a second father, his right-hand man, and his spiritual guide. As much as he loved Becks, body and soul, they were very different people and would never completely mesh like he and The Monk. A part of Cam died that day, too, and while his body would heal from its recent wounds, he knew his spirit would never recover from this loss.
Then there was the guilt factor, which sunk into him more painfully than a zombie’s teeth. He had called The Monk and asked him to go on this mission. He had asked The Monk to watch over and protect Becks. He should have known that The Monk would look upon Cam’s request as a sacred duty—one for which he would be willing to forfeit his life.
Even though The Monk had told Cam every time someone in the compound died on a mission that no one is to blame for such deaths, those words didn’t really help him at those times, and they certainly didn’t help him now.
The Monk had also said that for him, dying in a hospital bed would be worse than being eaten by zombies, but that wasn’t any consolation either. Cam had no idea about The Monk’s cancer, and how he literally gladly chose to go out heroically rather than die in bed, but even later after Cam learned about The Monk’s condition from Becks, it wouldn’t ease his grief. His only possible relief from his deep mourning would come from killing every fucking zombie he could get his hands on.
When the Defender arrived back at West Point, trucks and troops were there to transport everything they had collected at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Becks felt as if she was 90 years old as she climbed onto the dock. Phil was there to give her a hug, and fill her in on Cam’s condition. Then he ordered her to go straight to her quarters to get some sleep, and was astounded when Becks didn’t protest.
Julian and Martha were equally fried and no one would be of any use to the project until they were rested and clearheaded. Pete would oversee the setup of the new instruments and equipment throughout most of the night. Then it would be all hands on deck in the morning until Project Decimation could either be fully implemented, or they all became completely overrun like Joanna Gilchrest.
Becks dropped her wet, bloody clothes on the floor just ins
ide the door to her room. As dog-tired as she was, she needed a long, hot shower. She couldn’t prove it scientifically, but she believed that fear and grief created biochemicals that stuck to the skin like a “stink” of despair. She desperately needed to physically and mentally cleanse herself of the last couple of days.
Not until she stepped into the shower did she realize what a complete and total physical wreck she was. Her cuts and bites were red and swollen. Every muscle ached. She could barely lift her arms from all of the hand-to-hand fighting on the streets of New York City. Her feet were like throbbing blocks of lead from the mile after mile of running for her life. Her thighs and calves burned, and her hands felt as if someone had crushed them in a vice.
Worst of all, however, were the rope burns under her arms. But the pain was more emotional than physical, and when she closed her eyes she could clearly see The Monk’s face for the last time, as she hung from that rope, her life literally in his strong, massive, but gentle hands.
After slipping into bed, she called the base hospital to get a message to Cam that she would see him in the morning. She told the nurse that she didn’t want to disturb him from his sleep, but the truth was that she simply couldn’t face him right now. Her emotions were too raw, and she also felt too much guilt. She had replayed the events over and over in her head and kept coming up with different endings—all of which resulted in The Monk still being alive, or so she managed to convince herself.
Sleep mercifully came quickly, and Becks was able to continue torturing herself with guilt in her nightmares. Everyone in the Saugerties compound who was able to sleep that night, also had nightmares. Many of them, too, felt guilt; especially those who now realized that the special kind of crazy and recklessness The Monk had recently exhibited was, in fact, part of his growing death wish—to die with his motorcycle boots on, so to speak.
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