by Bushman, LJ
Andrea was lightning fast, but she was also distracted by Riverson’s inaction. “Riverson!” she commanded. “I said attack.”
Joseph had Riverson’s hands behind his back and ratcheted the handcuffs on one hand before Riverson reacted. He jerked his free hand away and swung at Joseph. It must’ve been his hurt hand; a look of pain crossed his features and he hesitated again. Andrea’s control over him wasn’t perfect any longer. Something had changed.
Realization dawned in Andrea’s eyes. She turned back to me and snarled. She was scarier than ever. I didn’t know what had brought about Riverson’s sudden hesitation, but she sure as hell didn’t like it. Andrea lunged at me and I dodged, but she was ready for me this time. She swung an upper cut that landed in my solar plexus, stopping my attempt to dive at her.
Pain racked through me and I couldn’t breathe. I staggered back. My mind whirled. What the hell was she waiting for? Andrea watched Joseph and Riverson, who’d started fighting again. Joseph tried to get through to him verbally.
“Sir, she’s drugged you. She’s been using you all this time. She doesn’t care.” The last statement earned him a hard swing. He blocked it with his forearm, but winced.
Andrea laughed again and turned back to me. “Your boyfriend is going to get killed.”
“You underestimate Joseph. Or have you forgotten he’s an Infected as well.”
Her eyes said she’d not only forgotten, but was unhappy with the news.
“Well, well. You were excited the first time you suspected it. Why so unhappy now?” I was thankful for the break, but really, she should have finished me off or at least kept beating on me.
Andrea was too distracted. The virus. For fuck’s sake, Serena. Andrea isn’t the only one distracted. How could I be so dense? It continued to change her, and she was still in the middle of the transformation. She may have woken quickly, but the process wasn’t finished. It explained why Riverson’s reactions to her were so muddled.
“Joseph,” I called. “She’s using her sexual allure with the director. It’s changing. Her body’s chemistry is changing. She’s losing her hold.”
Frustration and fright crossed her face. How many of her men were controlled largely by sexual allure. Joseph punched the director smack in the face, the noise loud in the warehouse that had turned into a large boxing ring, without the screaming fans.
The director shook his head, and looked at me and Andrea. “What’s going on,” he demanded.
My smirk pissed her off as much as her loss of control over Riverson. I heard Joseph’s voice as he tried to explain to Riverson, but not the words.
Andrea had flown into a full temper tantrum. “Kill them all,” she yelled to the guards still standing.
It was only four guards. She frowned at me, then looked back to where the men were and found five of them. By now, the others should have been on their feet and zombies. Al had torn all their heads off. He was covered in blood and held a knife. My grin nearly split my face. He listened when I explained how to kill them—sever the spinal cord and the lower brain lobes. If you only did one, then the body had a chance of healing. The Infected with the Ultimate form of the virus seemed to heal more efficiently than the earlier versions. No doubt the same mutation allowing Andrea to heal so fast.
The guards opened fire on the civilians. Shit and fuck. I couldn’t tell how many they killed. Lori and Trent were just moving into the office above when the gunfire started. I heard Trent’s return fire before I focused on Andrea again. I hoped he could keep them occupied.
I backed up, drawing Andrea farther away from Joseph and Riverson. They moved behind the line which had concealed us earlier. Joseph shot at the guards shooting the civilians. Riverson saw me and Andrea, and came our way. I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. He had a knife. I had my knife and one round left in my magazine.
If he wanted to help me, wonderful. If not, I was screwed. Time to go on the offensive. I jumped toward Andrea, kicking her in the stomach and rolled away. She staggered back a step before recovering her balance. This was so not good.
Andrea came at me with an uppercut and I blocked with my casted arm. It went numb, causing me to lose my grip on the knife. It clattered to the floor, ringing out her victory for this round. I brought my gun up and shot her in the eye. Riverson came in low, reared up, and sunk the knife into her neck.
I picked up my knife, dropped my gun, and put the knife in my good hand, never taking my eyes off Andrea. She jerked around trying to get to Riverson and pull the knife out. He held on tight. I stepped in and sliced her stomach open. Blood oozed everywhere, and bits of her body tumbled out of the jagged wound. First a rancid hotdog looking thing, then larger blood-slicked organs. I didn’t stop to watch anymore. I stabbed her and another swipe severed her jugular. A jet of blood pulsed from her throat, drenching us. I took the long knife, jammed it up at an angle where her neck met her jaw.
Her eyes widened and she tried to pull my knife out. This enabled Riverson to twist his knife, making sure her spinal cord was severed and stayed severed. His eyes widened and his head jerked back in surprise. My knife had made its way through her lower brain and out the back of her head. Perfect. I hit the right place. Hopefully the knife was wide enough to completely sever the lobes from this angle.
Andrea gurgled, blood sputtering from her mouth as she grabbed at the knife. Her body still tried to heal. The skin on her stomach had started to heal, but not all of her innards had been drawn back in. I saw the artery in her neck I’d split open seal together. Fuck, I must not have severed the lobes after all. I jerked up on the knife, then down. I didn’t know exactly where the knife was in her skull. It was too easy to miss coming at a kill from the front.
Andrea finally stopped fighting and slumped against my knife. Her eyes were still open, but the intelligence drained from them as life left her body. I pulled my knife out. She fell to the floor. Neither Riverson nor I were inclined to cushion her fall.
He looked at me over her body and nodded. Returning it, I turned to watch the shooting match. There were only two guards left, squatting behind the pile of dead bodies from the initial rush. I grabbed my gun and moved quickly to stand behind the line. But as I got there, I realized one of the men only took potshots at Joseph. The other shot rapidly at Trent, trying to kill him with his partner backing him up while he put in a new clip.
Sparks flew off the metal staircase. The few people still alive under the staircase, cried and cringed into as small of targets as possible. Whatever was in the office must be sacrosanct for the guards to focus their attack on Trent. He’d be an easy pick if they waited until he came down the flight of stairs.
Joseph looked at me grimly. He’d figured it out long before me. Joseph hit one of the men. Blood flowed from the guard’s arm, but the wound didn’t bother him.
“They’re wearing Kevlar and seem impervious to pain,” Joseph said as I dropped behind the line with him.
Riverson crouched next to me, but he didn’t have a weapon. I only had one magazine left and I snagged it out of the holder hanging off my belt and slammed it home. We didn’t have a lot of options.
“Where’s Al?” I hadn’t seen him before taking cover.
“The soldiers figured out what he was doing and one shot him until his face was unrecognizable. I don’t know if he’s still alive, or undead, or whatever zombies are.” He was frustrated. He’d lost a man and as leader, it’d weigh on him. Even if the man down was a zombie.
It also begged the question, how many of the guards would come back as zombies?
The director had the same idea. “I’m going to go through the line break over there,” he said, pointing. “I don’t have a gun, but I have a knife. I’ll try to take care of any zombies that come back to life.”
I nodded to show him I understood and relayed the message to Joseph when he stooped back down.
Trent fired another round off the catwalk and I popped up to provide cover. I nailed
one of the guards in the shoulder. He barely flinched and took another shot at Trent. There was no ping of metal this time, and I looked up. Trent kept shooting, but blood drenched his t-shirt over his stomach. Lori stood behind him, yelling and tugging him back. He yelled something back to her, but I didn’t catch it. They were both screaming, but all I could hear were the tears in Lori’s voice. He pointed to the stairs, and she finally took his advice and ran down them.
I opened fire on both soldiers, emptying my magazine. Joseph rose and did the same. But they sent another shot off at Trent. His body jerked sideways, his gun hand hanging over the rail. His lost his grip on his weapon. It fell to the ground. Everything moved in slow motion. Lori shrieked and headed back up the stairs.
“No!” I screamed. “No!” I started running to her, a knife my only weapon.
Joseph reloaded a new magazine and kept shooting. Lori hesitated as she heard me and ran down the stairs again. Trent tried to recover. He seized another gun out of his waistband, lifted his hand and aimed one last time. He got a shot off before another slug hit him.
Lori hit the floor and headed my way at a run worthy of an Olympic sprinter. I pushed her back to the production line with me and threw my knife at one of the shooters before looking at Trent again. He dangled over the railing, holding on with one hand and trying to shoot at the men with the other. He couldn’t hold on anymore, and I watched, horrified as his body fell to the floor.
Lori screamed the whole time. I realized it was her gun he had which allowed him the one last shot. His shot brought one of the men down at the same time Joseph nailed the other. I fought the urge to cry. Feelings washed through me and morphed into anger.
Riverson made it to the soldiers, but one of the men had come back to life. He was busy fighting him off, so he couldn’t reach the two newly dead soldiers. I held Lori and comforted her, trying to calm her down. Joseph joined Riverson in his fight, but it was too late.
The zombie got in close and ripped a chunk out of Riverson’s throat. Blood poured from the wound.
Shit.
How many more zombies were we going to fight? I moved over to Trent to see if he was coming back to life and to grab his dropped weapons.
I moved quickly, but gingerly. I found the first gun he dropped and checked the magazine. Six left. I lifted Trent’s hand away from his other weapon and reached down to grab it. A bullet ripped through my leg from behind.
I wasn’t prepared and fell to the side. One of the men who’d taken down Trent was already on his feet again and shooting. Fucking hell, my thigh stung like a thousand bees were having a go at me at once in the same place. I scooted back, trying not to think of the bodies I touched as I found a place to hide. I shot back with Trent’s second gun, which I hadn’t checked. The gun clicked, empty. I brought the other gun up to shoot, but the second shooter had regained his footing and fought Joseph in my line of fire.
When the soldier focused on me realized I wasn’t going to shoot back, he took a couple more potshots at me, then joined his partner to attack Joseph. I held onto the bullet wound and grit my teeth in an attempt to ignore the pain while my body did its thing. The chaos whirled on around me.
Riverson was down. The fight was between Joseph and the three zombies. With each minute that passed, I saw Joseph tiring. I watched carefully for a shot that wouldn’t endanger him. Finally, he broke the neck of one soldier and brought the body in front of him. Joseph threw the body at the two men. He used the distraction to reach down and grab Riverson’s knife. Mine was somewhere over there as well.
Lori moved to help Joseph and picked up my knife. I was proud yet scared out of my mind. I shot at one of the downed men as they stood, scoring a hit through the back of his neck. He whipped around to face me and lifted his arm to shoot, but realized too late he didn’t have his weapon anymore. He’d lost it when he fell over dead, but didn’t remember. I’d seen that kind of thing before, momentary memory loss after the zombie came back. He didn’t have much time to miss his weapon. Lori rammed my knife into the soft spot at the base of his skull, and he dropped like rotten fruit from a tree.
Joseph fought off the zombie still standing. They were in a major kicking match, but Joseph slashed the knife across his opponent’s leg every time he kicked him. Blood coated everything. The zombie’s clothes were plastered to him, with more blood oozing down the sodden fabric. The constant cuts and new slashes wore on the zombie, and his anger ate at his control. He closed in on Joseph, not stopping when Joseph kicked him.
The zombie grabbed ahold of Joseph’s neck and strangled him. Joseph brought the knife up and around and slammed it home in the back of the zombie’s head. I wanted to cheer, but was too tired.
Lori still fought the zombie who’d had his neck broken. The zombie came at her sideways, as its head was facing that way. Gene had fixed his head after his neck broke. Why didn’t this zombie? His head’s weird angle left the neck exposed and short bone ends bulged out in one place on his neck. The skin on his face pulled against the flesh covering his jaw. It tore every time he leaned forward. Lori held her own fighting him off. I shot, hitting him in the forehead. His head jerked. He didn’t even glance at me, just kept lumbering after Lori, reaching with an outstretched arm, until she was pinned against the wall. She got a few good kicks in and cut him, but he still tried to get her.
The zombie wasn’t trying to kill her, per se. He wanted to eat her alive. It appeared to occur to her about the same time it did me; Lori’s eyes widened in horror. She stared into the zombie’s mouth and frantically clawed the wall behind her as if looking for purchase to scale it backwards with one hand, the other outstretched trying to keep the grotesque being away from her. Joseph managed to get to her side just as the zombie snagged her arm and brought it to his mouth.
I sagged in relief. Awkwardly, I worked on standing, although my leg hadn’t healed yet. When I finally managed to make it upright, I found Joseph walking Lori around the bodies, trying not to step on anyone. Joseph really was a good man. I headed to them, but noticed movement. Riverson!
“Joseph!” I called.
He turned swiftly, blocking Riverson’s attempt to bite him. Joseph brought his knife around, slashing deep into Riverson’s arm. With a deliberate move, Joseph circled around to the side so Riverson faced away from Lori, who still held my huge serrated knife.
Lori moved to stab Riverson in the neck. Riverson sensed it and turned, grabbing her knife arm by the wrist. He smiled. Blood coated his teeth. He must have eaten from the bodies while we were concentrating on the other zombies. My stomach rolled. Seeing Lori as an easy meal, Riverson apparently forgot about the menace behind him.
Joseph grabbed Riverson’s chin and turned it, snapping his neck while shoving the knife up into his brain and twisting it. By then, I’d reached them and forced Riverson’s hands off Lori’s wrist. He plopped down in a gory mess, joining the other bodies on the floor.
It was over.
The fight was finally over. The three of us hugged. Lori and I cried tears of relief.
“Did you get what we needed from the office?” I asked when I could finally speak around the lump in my throat.
She nodded. “I emailed it to our secure account, the easiest route for the time we had. There’s so much there. They’ve been working on this bio-weapon for thirty years. I sent it all.”
“You need to send them to me at the FBI,” Joseph said.
Lori looked at me, letting me make the call.
“We will send them to you from an encrypted account at a time which we will work out before going home. On one condition,” I said. No way in hell would I give the information up before I knew it wouldn’t get “lost” to some other mole we might not know about.
Joseph peered at me warily, but nodded. “What is it?”
“You have to set up an encrypted email outside of FBI accounts and you cannot include the information in the official files. Lori will translate the science stuff for you. After you read it,
you may not want the details in the official files. Someone high up is involved and, as you know, is killing anyone who knows too much and aren’t on board with their party line.”
“I don’t like it. We have to bring the government in. At least the FBI.”
Part of me wanted to laugh hysterically. After all that, Joseph still wanted to do it all by the book. “The government is who set this up in the first place. We don’t know whom we can trust. Riverson was an unwitting stool. How many more are out there?”
The impact of my words was written across his features as his frown continued. I watched his struggle with what he was—a cop—and the truth of my words.
“Agreed. Now, let’s get this mess cleared up and get you to the hospital.”
“No, Lori can take care of my wounds when we get back to your place. Then I need to get home to Washington with Lori and the kids.”
Home. Had a sweeter word ever been spoken? I didn’t think so. “No offense, Joseph, but next time I see you, I hope it isn’t in an official capacity.”
He hugged me. “Me too, Serena. Me too. You know how to get ahold of my mom?”
“Yes, thanks. I appreciate her help so much. You and your mom are amazing.”
“Think you can stay a little longer? I’m sure my mom would like it. I know I would.”
I didn’t know the totality of the red tape mess Joseph had to clear up, but I did know I was going home no matter what. “No. I need to take Seth and Kyle home. The sooner the better.” No matter what my libido wanted. “Rain check?”
“Doesn’t it rain all the time in Washington?”
I found myself laughing in response. “Only on the west side. I live on the east side. But I can come any time. Or you can visit us.”
He looked back at the warehouse where all the bodies lay, where we’d suffered grueling losses. “I have to stay and help them fix whatever this is.”
“Duty calls.” I managed to keep the tears out of my voice.