The Ironville Zombie Quarantine Retraction Experiment

by Better Hero Army

  Boom!

  The lockers next to the leading zombie rattled and cracked where he shot them, one of the metal doors slamming into the locker and bouncing back wildly. All the zombies froze at the sudden noise and their attention turned toward the locker that banged on its hinge one more time.

  “Penny, come on,” Tom said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  Penelope grabbed Larissa and hoisted the girl to her feet. She ducked low and let Larissa fall over her shoulder, then stood and headed past Tom. Brooks drew his pistol and followed her, side stepping while looking both ahead and behind.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Brooks cried out to the others.

  “Keep going,” Tom said from behind, close enough that Penelope knew he was with her.

  “It says roof access,” Kennedy was saying to the others when Penelope reached them. Kennedy’s flashlight shone on the sign indicating the door led to stairs.

  “We’re not going up,” Carl growled and swung a metal pipe at the lock of the roll-up door one more time.

  Clang!

  The noise rang in Penelope’s ears. She wished she could cover them, but with Larissa draped over her shoulder, she had to keep a tight hold on the girl’s legs to prevent her from falling. Penelope leaned her head against Larissa’s torso to cover one of her ears as Carl whacked at the lock again.

  Clang!

  “Shit,” Carl snapped.

  “Get out of the way,” Tom said as he stepped forward, cocking the shotgun. An empty shell ejected into the air and bounced hollowly onto the pavement as Tom approached the roll-up gate. He levelled the shotgun and turned his head away.

  Boom!

  The door rattled from floor to ceiling as the lock erupted from its mooring. Carl moved in with the pipe and whacked the lock one more time, knocking it off the door and onto the ground. He reached for the handle of the door.

  “Wait,” Hank shouted. “What’s the plan?”

  “Head for the train,” Carl replied.

  “Head for the snowmobiles,” Tom countered. “It’s eleven miles to the train.”

  “And then what? We don’t have any keys.”

  “Mason will get them,” O’Farrell said confidently. “He’ll get them.”

  “He may already be dead,” the Senator said. “We need to get to the train.”

  “No time to argue,” Hank growled as he looked down the luggage bay at the approaching mass of shambling zombies. “We go to the snowmobiles, and if there’s no keys, we keep walking.”

  “Just open the goddamned gate,” the Senator insisted.

  Tom nodded his agreement and Carl lifted the gate up.

  “Holy shit!” Hank yelled as gray light filled the bay. Outside, just a few feet away, black shadows swayed toward them in the falling snow, hooded figures that groaned in anticipation of a meal and the warmth of shelter. Carl jumped up to grab the gate and began hauling it back down.

  Kennedy turned and ran straight into Penelope. Larissa’s weight threw Penelope off balance. She spun and rolled Larissa off her shoulder as she crouched, catching the girl before she hit the ground. The added weight was too much for her and she fell forward over Larissa.

  Penelope looked back at Kennedy, glaring at her retreating form.

  Hank snapped the cap off his last remaining flare and tossed it the length of the luggage bay at the oncoming biters already inside. “Move when it blows!” he yelled, turning his back to the horde and covering his ears. Penelope covered her own ears as she rolled off Larissa.

  Boom!

  Everyone sank low as though a fireball was about to roll over them. Red light from the exploding flare filled the bay from end to end, casting long, tall shadows onto the ceiling of zombies turning and spinning. She heard them shrieking in agony as they flailed against the noise and blinding light.

  “Go! Head out the other hole,” Hank said as he moved to where the conveyor went back out into the main terminal.

  “Then what?” Brooks shrieked. “Then what?”

  “Get my daughter,” the Senator barked at Brooks, shaking him.

  Penelope rolled to her side as the chaos around her rose in volume and motion. Everyone hurried away from the roll-up gate, bumping into one another as they tried to reorganize. Penelope watched Kennedy yank open the stairwell door. Kennedy didn’t look back as she stepped through. The light of her flashlight shone over the steps and she looked up as the door clapped shut, sealing her inside.

  O’Farrell crouched beside Penelope, holding out a hand urgently.

  “Come on,” she said. “We have to move.”

  “Ken-yen-tee,” Penelope rasped, ignoring O’Farrell’s offered hand and instead pointing at the stairwell door.

  “What?” O’Farrell asked.

  Penelope rolled to her knees and stood. “Doc-tor.”

  “She went in there?” O’Farrell asked, following Penelope toward the door.

  Penelope nodded.

  “Tom,” O’Farrell called. Tom stood inside the hole leading out, holding the flaps aside to let Brooks through with Larissa. Hank had already gone through and everyone else waited impatiently in a ragged queue.

  The zombies near the burning fragments of flare groped at the air and moved in circles only twenty feet away, shielding their eyes against the bright lights that were beginning to wink out one by one. A wall of more zombies stood beyond the ring of light with their arms up to shield their eyes, waiting, ready to surge forward at any moment. “Kennedy went up.”

  “Up?”

  “Up. Come on,” O’Farrell waved for Tom to join them.

  “You go,” Tom said urgently, looking at his dad, then at the others before looking back at Penelope. The zombies were pressing forward and he already had one leg through the hole to help the others crawl through. “Get upstairs. We’ll get you out through the jet-way. Use your radio. Penny, you keep her safe.”

  There was no time to argue. The flare fragments fizzled out. O’Farrell turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  “Tom,” Penelope groaned, a lump rising in her throat.

  “Go,” Tom mouthed.

  O’Farrell shoved Penelope through the doorway and spun immediately to push the door shut against its piston, bracing the door with her body once it closed. Penelope stood shoulder-to-shoulder with O’Farrell, their backs braced against the door, their hearts beating so loudly they could hear them echoing through the stairwell. Then Penelope realized it wasn’t her heart, but the sound of someone climbing the stairs.

  Kennedy was running away.

  Thirty

  O’Farrell pushed Penelope toward the first flight of stairs, pointing up. They both began climbing after the retreating light of Kennedy’s flashlight. It cast a spectral glow over the otherwise pitch black inner stairwell. The slap of her shoes above them echoed distantly, as though she were disappearing along with her light.

  “Danielle!” O’Farrell called. The echo of Kennedy’s feet stopped for a moment. O’Farrell and Penelope continued to ascend, trying to catch up with her. Penelope heard Kennedy’s feet tapping the stairs again, quieter this time, but moving quickly.

  A door shook above them, but didn’t open.

  “Shit,” they heard Kennedy hiss, then her continued tapping of feet as she rose ever higher and her light dimmed further.

  “Doctor, wait,” O’Farrell called, stumbling toward the first landing. Penelope held a hand to stop her, but she didn’t see it in the darkness. Penelope quickly grabbed O’Farrell as she tripped, almost falling herself.

  “Thanks,” O’Farrell gasped. The camera swung beneath her arm and smacked into the stairs. O’Farrell swore under her breath, groping in the darkness with her other hand to clutch the camera to her chest as she stood upright again.

  “I still have spots in my eyes from those flares. Can you see?”

  Penelope nodded. O’Farrell looked into the darkness beside Penelope as though expecting an answer.

  “Heh—” Penelope started to a
nswer, but stopped herself. Hess was how she usually said yes, but it was wrong. She took a deep breath and tried again, the way Tom had taught her. “Yuh-ess.”

  “Take my hand,” O’Farrell said while reaching out through the darkness. “Help me up the stairs.”

  Penelope had only ever held Tom’s hand before. Touching someone else felt like a betrayal. Hands meant intimacy. Hands formed bonds. She could just as easily grab O’Farrell’s sleeve or collar to lead her in the dark.

  Steeling herself, Penelope snatched O’Farrell’s hand and clenched it tightly. O’Farrell’s eyes widened at such abrupt treatment. Penelope eased her grip and pulled her upward, guiding her in the dark.

  They took only a few steps before they were met with a banging sound above. A deep, resonating pounding as though someone were beating on a door.

  Kennedy groaned in frustration. “Hurry up,” she called down the stairs.

  Penelope stopped at the second floor landing and tried to turn the door knob, but it spun freely. It had a push-button combination panel above the knob. This was the first door Kennedy tried.

  “Some light would be nice,” O’Farrell called up the stairs. A glow of light swung down the stairwell shaft, barely illuminating the next four flights above.

  Penelope knew her own vision was better than full humans in darkness. Tom told her something about rods and cones and the murkiness in her eye fluid acting like an amplifier to light. None of it really meant anything to her except that bright light hurt her eyes for the same reason she saw better at night. O’Farrell, on the other hand, was probably nearly blind without the dim glow of the flashlight. That’s why she didn’t let go of Penelope’s hand even as they ascended toward it.

  “Thanks,” O’Farrell said as they climbed. Penelope wasn’t sure who she was talking too.

  As they rounded the last landing and looked up at the top floor, Penelope covered her eyes. Kennedy stood at the top with her flashlight pointed directly at them.

  “Where’re the others? Did anyone else come this way?”

  “No,” O’Farrell said between breaths. “Tom said to get to the jetway. They’d pick us up from there.”

  “That’s no good,” Kennedy replied blandly. “Come on up here. I need your help with this door.”

  This time O’Farrell led Penelope by the hand, climbing the last few stairs before letting her go once they reached the top. Kennedy turned the flashlight toward the door leading out to the roof.

  “Give me your gun for a second,” Kennedy said.

  “Why?” O’Farrell asked, putting a hand over her holster protectively.

  “So I can shoot this lock,” Kennedy said, waving her hand in the air for the gun.

  O’Farrell sighed and reluctantly handed Kennedy the gun.

  “Back up,” Kennedy said, taking a step back herself.

  Penelope put her hands over her ears as Kennedy aimed the pistol at the deadbolt.

  “This is stupid,” O’Farrell said. “There’s a door to the second floor. We can—”

  Blam!

  Penelope’s body stiffened at the sudden noise.

  “Jesus,” O’Farrell swore, putting her hands over her ears. The sound of the pistol still echoed in Penelope’s ear drums.

  Kennedy kicked at the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “You have to shoot at the—”

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Kennedy kicked the door again, and this time it creaked and slid partially open. Light from outside filled the stairwell landing and Kennedy turned off her flashlight.

  “You were saying?” Kennedy asked sarcastically. “Open it,” she added, waving the gun toward the door.

  “What? Why me?”

  “Because I have the gun,” Kennedy said. “Go on.”

  O’Farrell let out a sigh of frustration and leaned her shoulder against the door to push it open. The freezing chill from outside rushed in with the light. For a brief moment, Penelope expected zombies outside, but all she saw was snow. The door stopped a quarter of the way open and O’Farrell slammed it with her shoulder a few times to inch it further, but the snow was too thick.

  “Out,” Kennedy snapped, waving the pistol at O’Farrell.

  “What the hell?” O’Farrell asked in astonishment.

  “I said, out. Now.”

  Penelope growled.

  Kennedy raised the gun and pointed it at Penelope. “Back off, sweetie.”

  Thirty-One

  “Are you crazy?” O’Farrell asked in disbelief.

  “You too, Wendy. Back off,” Kennedy said, shooing her with a wave of the pistol.

  The snow on the rooftop was up to their knees. Penelope tugged O’Farrell out the door, backing away from Kennedy and the pistol she pointed dangerously in their direction. There didn’t seem to be anyplace to run. The round glass ceiling of the terminal building rose above them only forty feet away. To one side was a wall and a ladder going up. The only other way led toward the roof’s edge, the way Kennedy corralled them.

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this, Wendy. I thought you were part of the team!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You! Why are you suddenly so goddamned curious about the half-breed program? And Jones?”

  “Jones?”

  “Stop acting stupid,” Kennedy snarled, stepping onto the roof and pushing the door closed behind her with her back. “What did he tell you about me?”

  “He hasn’t told me anything about you I didn’t already know. I was there, remember?”

  Kennedy laughed. “So he really did lose it all? What did he say about the Senator?”

  “Why would he—”

  O’Farrell closed her mouth, backing up now a little quicker, pushing Penelope with her.

  “Oh, so he did talk,” Kennedy said wickedly. She took steps forward to match the distance O’Farrell was trying to put between them. “I knew that photographic memory of his was going to be trouble. Speaking of photos, hand over the camera.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Why do you question everything? Give me the camera.”

  “What’s so important about pictures of Larissa?”

  “Oh, God, you still think this is just about the little girl! You took pictures of the half-breeds, of the extras.”

  “Extras?” O’Farrell asked.

  “Extras! Extras! Jesus, the extra half-breeds. Did you honestly think the original forty were enough to devise a cure? Damn it, Wendy, for a scientist you’re so dense sometimes.”

  O’Farrell’s eyes narrowed. “So that half-breed in the woods today. He was an extra. How many are there?”

  “Questions, questions, questions. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know. There’s no evidence of it anymore. Your boyfriend helped us see to that.”

  “But I don’t have a—”

  “Jones, you thick-headed ditz. When he went commando on Rock Island.”

  “He didn’t do that. You know he didn’t.”

  “Me? I was off the island looking for the Warden to file a report. Thank goodness, too, or I’d have gone up with all that research.”

  “You’re joking. You administered the cure. I was right there with you. Jones didn’t do anything. And how could you have lost all the research? Didn’t we have off-site backups of everything?”

  “What, with those Skywatch bloggers out there tapped into everything? No way. Four years of research went up in flames thanks to your friend, and that’s the official version, not to mention how many soldiers and civilians he murdered.”

  Penelope stopped backing up and nudged O’Farrell to look behind them. They had run out of roof top. They both looked down the long drop, watching thick dollops of snow plummet down the dizzying height. Penelope wondered if they could survive a fall like that. She preferred the idea of using the enclosed ladder bolted to the outside of the building, but Kennedy side-stepped to the edge, cutting off any way of reaching it.

  Kennedy kept her distance as sh
e looked over the edge. “That’s a hell of a fall.” She sighed. “You know, I probably wouldn’t have done any of this if you hadn’t taken the vial.”

  O’Farrell wore a look of innocent shock.

  “This isn’t exactly the time for theatrics, Wendy. I saw you take the curative—the vial we used on the Senator’s little girl. Who were you planning on selling it to?”

  “Selling it? No, I was going to use it.”

  “On who? Jones? He’s already been cured.”

  O’Farrell glanced at Penelope.

  “On twenty-two?” Kennedy laughed. “Oh, Wendy, the things you don’t know about this girl. I already offered to cure her, and that bottle won’t do the trick. Not with her. She’s special. She was part of the vaccine study. Her body will just reject the curative.”

  “So how were you going to cure her?”

  “I’ve got my ways. Now, the Q&A is over. Give me the camera and the vial.”

  “Or what?” O’Farrell asked.

  Blam!

  The noise of the pistol hit Penelope as hard as a bullet. For a second, she stood as stunned as O’Farrell, unsure who the bullet hit, or if Kennedy missed when she pulled the trigger. The pistol pointed between them, giving no indication of whom Kennedy shot. Penelope waited for any sign of pain, expecting a fire to rise up from her chest and spread throughout her body, like it did in her nightmares.

  O’Farrell put a hand against her own chest as she collapsed, slumping into the snow at the edge of the roof. Penelope followed her down, grabbing her arm to keep her from sliding off the roof, yanking her away from the edge even as she began to topple over.

  “No,” Penelope shouted. Her voice wavered, breaking from a whisper to a scream, frightening even herself.

  O’Farrell’s breathing came in quick, shallow gasps. Penelope tugged her away from the roof a second time. She grabbed Penelope by the arm with one hand, clutching her fiercely. Her eyes bulged with fright. A hissing noise from O’Farrell’s throat came with each desperate breath.