The elevator down the hall announced the arrival of the promised security team. He glanced down the hallway to see armed men and women pouring out of the elevator and racing in their direction.
Ducking inside and slamming the door he screamed at Todd and John to push a couple of large cabinets in front of it. “Everybody take cover,” he said as he fished the detonator out of his pocket. He gave them all a moment to cower before depressing the switch.
In the hallway the security team arrived outside of 113 just as the C4 charges began to detonate. Inside the room it sounded like giants were hammering on the door loud enough to shake the walls and plunge the room into darkness.
“What’s going on?” someone screamed.
“It’s an earthquake!” another person yelled.
“Shut up, you fucking idiots!” Dick bellowed. “I set off a series of explosives to buy some time.”
That proclamation silenced the room just as emergency recessed lighting brought the room from total darkness to a dull red glow. Dick was caught in profile under the bulb by the door. He knew he looked like a madman with ceiling debris on his head and a gun in his hand. “You can save your questions for later. Right now we need to get out of here. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Where are we going to go, Dick, you’ve trapped us in this room,” Sarah said. “What is this, a storage room?”
“As I said, no questions,” Dick said. He pushed through the group and walked to the closet at the rear of the room. “Help me clear this shit out of here.”
Soon the closet was empty and Dick stood in front of the back wall. He felt along the surface until he found the lever he knew would be there. He pulled it and the wall split in two revealing a hidden passage.
“What is this, Dick?” someone asked behind him.
“It’s our way out of here,” he replied. He fished a powerful flashlight out of his bag and aimed it into the passage. It continued straight for a few feet and then appeared to end in a dark drop off.
…
Dr. Andrew Penrod was deeply confused standing on unsteady feet at the dank smelling entrance to the tunnel. He watched Dick redistribute the samples, equipment and supplies to the small group. When he got to Andrew he shoved a large, heavy backpack into his arms. “Put it on and keep up,” he said gruffly.
Andrew stood holding the pack as the others followed Dick into the tunnel until John stopped and helped him put it on. “We need to do what he says,” John whispered. “I saw him shoot your nurse in cold blood a few minutes ago. I think he’s cracked.”
“What nurse?” Andrew asked but John had already taken off after Dick.
He took one last look up at the small landing from which they’d climbed down. Smoke was still billowing out of the open door leading back into the Area 51 facility.What the hell had happened?
He had regained consciousness to the startling sensation of being manhandled down a ladder in almost complete darkness. The only light was the soft hazy glow of amber colored emergency lights pulsing in rhythm to the low blare of the facilities alarm.
Andrew’s immediate reaction was to start flailing but Dick managed to knee him in the groin which took all the fight out of him for the remaining ten feet of their descent. He had been drugged, of that much he was certain but prior to that the last thing he remembered was Dick barging into his quarters with a nasty look on his face and a tablet in his hands. Dick had slapped him, sat him on his bed and was getting ready show him a video on the tablet. After that, everything until the ladder was a blank.
Now he was doing his best to follow Dick and his ragtag group of kidnapped scientists through a manmade tunnel. Naked light bulbs lit the way every 25 yards. The air was cold and the sound of feet pounding on cement echoed off the walls and ceiling. It was impossible to hear any chatter through the noise but Andrew didn’t think anyone was talking. If he knew his colleagues, they would be terrified and meekly following after Dick like lambs. Andrew didn’t think he was going to kill them. If he had been planning on that, he would have done it already back in the facility.
They had been doing a slow jog for nearly three miles. Andrew knew because he was counting each light bulb they passed beneath and he was now up to 119. Ahead of him someone cried out and stumbled, dropping his or her bundle onto the floor. The group took the opportunity to stop and breathe. Most of them had their hands on their knees or were just plopped on the ground in exhaustion but nobody bothered to see to their fallen comrade. Andrew jogged up to the sobbing heap on the ground, who turned out to Savannah.
“Are you okay, Savannah?” he asked as he grabbed her elbow and pulled her to her feet.
Before she could answer Dick came dashing back from where he’d been leading the pack. “Listen up, shit sacks, I know you are tired and confused but we are almost out of here. All of this will make sense shortly. Can you walk, Savannah?”
“Not very fast, I turned my ankle,” she said.
“Fuck!” he yelled, startling everyone. He grabbed the large bag Savannah had been carrying and slung it around his shoulder. He was already hauling a bag of a similar size but seemed no worse for the wear with the added weight. “All right, Andrew, you have Savanah duty. Everybody up, we’ve got another half mile to go.”
This elicited a chorus of groans. “Hey,” Dick said, “I brought the roof down on those soldiers but understand this, the Syndicate will have at least two more response teams on our asses any minute now if they aren’t already. If you want to be down here when they arrive, be my guest but I can tell you I trained them to shoot traitors on sight so if they catch you they will kill you,” then he turned and resumed his jog through the tunnel.
Not surprisingly, the group suddenly caught their second wind and began a zombie shuffle in Dick’s wake. They weren’t moving very fast but even so Andrew found he and Savannah were falling behind the group at an alarming rate. She had one arm around his shoulder. Between her limp and the pack on his back their pace was agonizingly slow. Soon they couldn’t see the group at all and Andrew did his best to get them moving faster.
“Stop, Andrew, I can’t do it,” Savannah said between breaths.
“You have to do it, there’s no choice.”
“No, there is a choice, you leave me behind. There is no need for us both to die.”
“Hush, Savannah, I’m not leaving you.”
She grabbed his arm with surprising strength, “Andrew, listen to me, what we’ve been doing. What we’ve done. It’s evil in its purest form. I know you know that. Our excuse has always been fear of Dick and basic scientific curiosity but we can’t sit back any longer. Something has gone terribly wrong. Dick has done something even the Syndicate didn’t anticipate and now we’re all that’s left to try to stop something terrible from being unleashed on the world. You have to leave me.”
Noise from back the way they had come reached their ears and they both shot nervous glances behind them. “Seriously, Andrew, go now. They aren’t going to shoot me.” She shoved him away and nearly fell over in the process.
Andrew took a final look at her before adjusting his pack and resuming his run in the direction Dick and the others had gone. “I’m sorry, Savannah,” he called over his shoulder but if she said anything in return he was already too far away to hear it.
A vigorous five minutes later he ran around a bend in the tunnel and reached its end. Another ladder disappeared up into a dark shaft. Dick was waiting at the bottom with a rifle pointed in Andrew’s direction. “What the fuck took you so long? I was just about to leave without you. Where the hell is Savannah, did you leave her?”
“I,” Andrew replied between gasps of air, “had to, she insisted. She couldn’t walk. Then we could hear them coming behind us. Savannah doesn’t think they will harm her.”
Gunshots rang out almost as if in reply to Andrew’s statement. The blasts echoing through the tunnel chamber like a string of never-ending fire crackers.
“C’mon, we’ve got to go,” Dick
yelled over the ruckus. “Get up the ladder and into the chopper and tell the pilot I will join you in a moment.”
Dick had a small bag with him which he took and disappeared around the bend in the tunnel. Andrew didn’t have to be in Special Forces to understand Dick was going leave the Syndicate security team an unpleasant surprise when they got to the end of the tunnel. He scurried up the ladder with his pack bouncing in rhythm on each rung.
The ladder seemed endless; he stopped counting after 50 rungs and concentrated on just putting one arm over the next and moving his legs. His body was on fire with exertion and he was afraid to look down but eventually he could see he was coming to the top. Moonlight poured through the narrow opening and he could even make out a few stars. A cool rush of desert air greeted him like an old friend when he finally crested the top of the tunnel shaft. He climbed out and laid on the ground, his limbs trembling like he’d just finished a triathlon. He cursed the day he ever met Dick and got to his feet. Leaning over the access portal he strained and thought he could hear Dick climbing the ladder. He didn’t want to be standing around like an idiot when that maniac popped out.
Andrew scanned the horizon but couldn’t see much. Dick had said for him to get to the chopper but he didn’t hear anything. Perhaps they had left and he and Dick were screwed. In the moonlight he could see a narrow path which he followed for a good thirty yards before he spied a clearing with a dark shape in the middle. That had to be the chopper standing idle.
With a burst of energy he didn’t know he had left, Andrew bolted for the clearing anxious to get there before Dick caught up with him. Suddenly the dark shape of a man loomed up in front of him like a ghoul and they collided. The other man shouted and cursed as Andrew lay momentarily stunned on top of him.
With the wind knocked out of him, Andrew wanted to scream but he only managed a small high-pitched squeak of terror just before the other man roughly shoved him off and demanded to know who he was. Andrew went about gathering himself in almost total darkness while he explained he was with Dick. As he went to stand he realized he’d been sitting on something hard and rectangular. He scooped up the item and slipped it into his pocket as the man continued to question him. Although he hadn’t actually seen one in a number of years, he was almost certain he had just filched the man’s cell phone.
“Dick said there would be two more, where is the other one?” the man asked.
“She, uh, didn’t make it.” Andrew replied softly.
“And Dick?”
Andrew was sorely tempted to say Dick also didn’t make it but quickly quashed that urge. If Dick made it to the helicopter before it lifted off then Andrew would be a dead man. Furthermore, he had no way of knowing how loyal this man was to Dick. “He assured me he would be along shortly.”
“Great,” the man mumbled. “Then get your ass on the chopper.”
Andrew was mentally kicking himself as he approached open side door of what looked like a large military helicopter. That was regret he had heard in the soldiers voice. Andrew had guessed wrong and missed an opportunity to finally be free of Dick.
The others were already onboard along with a pilot. The group was quietly chatting like this was the most exciting thing that had happened to them in years. In a way Andrew supposed it was.
John was seated just inside the door and took the heavy pack from Andrew as he climbed aboard. “You made it!” John said with a smile, “We didn’t even realize you weren’t with us until we climbed out of the hole. Where’s Savanah?”
“She didn’t make it,” Andrew replied flatly. With that the happy mood in the helicopter was squashed. Andrew plopped into a seat as far away from the others as possible. After a few minutes the air started to get stale and Andrew thought about climbing out again until Dick returned.
Before he could move the helicopter bounced a solid foot off the ground. This was followed immediately by an uncomfortable thump. A muted explosion from deep in the Earth reverberated through the chopper. John and Dharmesh had fallen from their seats and Sarah shouted in alarm.
The pilot started the engine and Andrew could hear and feel the blades start to spin. The door slid open and there was Dick. He tossed his packs onboard and then he and the sentry followed. Dick took the only remaining passenger seat while the soldier pushed past Andrew to the co-pilot’s chair.
“Get this bird in the air,” Dick shouted.
The helicopter lifted off the ground slowly at first but gaining speed as it climbed. Andrew had to admit he felt exhilarated while he experienced his first helicopter ride. The sky around the chopper opening up into the vast expanse of the nighttime sky. It took his breath in a not unpleasant sensation until he glanced to the western skyline and spotted the orange glow of a raging fire.
Area 51, his prison for so very long, was burning. The idea of it should’ve made him happy but instead he was deeply unsettled. He looked at Dick. The man was staring out the window at the fading orange glow. His face bore an expression of grim victory. Savannah had been right. What they’d done to enable the Syndicate’s mind control plan had been evil. But somehow Dick had made it worse, Andrew just didn’t know how yet.
“Where are we going, Dick?” John shouted over the sound of the helicopter.
“Minneapolis,” Dick yelled back.
“What? Why in the hell would you take us to one of the pilot cities? The Syndicate will catch us for sure!”
“Because,” Dick said, “Minneapolis will be one of the last safe places in the country before too much longer.”
The group start assailing Dick with a barrage of questions but he had clearly said everything he was going to say. He settled back in his chair and seemed to relax. After a moment he glanced at Andrew with a terrifying grin. Andrew looked away, certain that Dick had done something to change the game plan from what the Syndicate had originally intended. But for the life of him, Andrew had no idea what that could have been. He absently fingered the phone in the darkness of the helicopter’s interior. He would need to be careful but as soon as he could he was going to call the only phone number he could remember and beg for help.
Chapter 20: Bricks and Mortar
The Present
We ran and ran, the dog and his boy, down the two blocks of Riverplace past the movie theater and the factories beyond until a stitch in my side insisted that I stop and breathe deeply for a while. Mandy dropped to the snow bank panting as I faced back the way we’d come to see if the Creep was chasing us. In my mind he had been right on our heels the entire way but the only tracks behind us were our own. This was good because in all the excitement I had lost the knife. We were defenseless.
There was no one behind us. No ominous noises or shadows approaching from afar. Just an empty street, the burbling sound of the slow moving Mississippi River and an endless blanket of snow, I wondered again if I’d hallucinated everything. I boxed that horrible thought up and shoved it into a back shelf of my mind to possibly be examined later but most likely not.
The weight of everything that had happened the last few hours hit me again and knocked me into a soft snow bank. Mandy was up in a flash and licking my face. I was reminded that even in the worst of circumstances a happy dog can make things better. I brushed some of the snow off her thick coat and got to my feet. I said, “C’mon, girl, we gotta get out of this weather.”
The parking lot we were in offered no protection from the elements. The closest things were two factories and the movie theater. I had no desire to go inside the factories. They looked ghostly, mechanical and completely unwelcoming. It was going to have to be the theater. I had seen movies there before. I remember it being old but cozy feeling.
We backtracked through the snow the way we had come. Our tracks were already lost to fresh snow cover and the illusive Creep was ever on my mind. What in the hell was he and where had he come from? The terrible feeling of being hunted was getting to me so I closed my eyes and called ten of the undead to my position. I was fortunate in that the
y hadn’t scattered too far since the fight with the city soldiers so by the time Mandy and I trudged up to the theater entrance, they were waiting for us.
When she spotted them Mandy started growling low in her throat, the fur on her back standing almost straight up. When I saw them I was overcome with relief. My gang of street toughs were back in play, the Creep couldn’t get me now. I spent a moment calming the dog down. Mandy got there but reluctantly. It was clear she wouldn’t be up for any tummy rubs or fetch games with my new colleagues. I made it very clear to them with a stern thought that the dog was mine and not to be touched. I am not sure why this worked, why any of my zombie abilities worked but they always did.
The doors to the theater were strong thick glass in metal frames. They were bolted shut as well as chained from the inside. While these deterrents may have kept me and Mandy out, they were nothing against 10 coordinated zombies. The foyer of the musty building was damp and dark as I stamped my feet free of snow. Mandy shook herself with enthusiasm spraying water on the zombies who didn’t seem to mind.
After considerable debate during which the zombies and Mandy were of no help, I decided to leave two of them at the door as sentries in case the Creep was out there somewhere waiting to get in. If my friends were still alive and showed up, I figured they could easily dispatch two zombies. My debate was over leaving more of them to guard the door. I was terrified of the Creep; he had taken on magical properties in my mind. I was sure he was something even beyond the undead. He was an evil warlock or a demon personified. I was also worried that he was already somewhere in the theater with me. If that turned out to be the case it wouldn’t matter how many zombie guards I left at the door. I could have argued with myself all night but in the end I was cold and hungry and needed to get moving so I just left two.
Running with the Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters Page 17