Die Zombie Die (I Zombie Book 3)

by Jack Wallen

  “I’ll ask only one more time. What information do you have?” Sam prodded.

  No one moved.

  No one breathed.

  One of the suits finally stepped forward. The man was tall, skinny with the slicked-back hair and attire of one who could easily be mistaken for ‘mob.’

  “Before we give you any information, we have to have your word you will return the favor,” the tall man spoke in a voice low and hushed.

  Sam was almost struck dumb by a man like this offering to play his hand before forcing his opponents to play theirs. Something was up.

  Sam didn’t hesitate. “Sure. You have my word. So… what’s the favor?”

  The men in suits all laughed in unison. The effect was a bit too rehearsed.

  “Sorry Sam, it doesn’t exactly work that way.” The stranger waved his hand over his head and an odd popping sound was heard. Sam felt a sting at the back of his neck and jerked his hand to locate, and kill, the source of the sting.

  “That, Sam, is our own piece of assurance you’ll do exactly what we say. You feel that sticking out of your neck? That is a poison delivery system one of my boys created. Oh, that’s not poison. I have a remote, a detonator if you will, that’ll allow me to release the virus into your system. I push the detonator button and, in a matter of moments, you’ll either be moaning or screaming about the streets in search of fresh brains.

  “The deal is this – we give you the bit of information you need to succeed in recovering your friends, while at the same time you do us our favor. When you return, having succeeded with the task, the device will be removed from your neck. Oh, and I wouldn’t try to remove that yourself. Unless a special tool is used, not only will it hurt like a son of a bitch, it will automatically release the virus.”

  The stranger offered a bit of a pause to allow the information to sink in.

  Sam inhaled as if to speak, but was interrupted by the be-suited man.

  “First the information you need to know. There is an insider working for The Zero Day Collective. We do not have a name. We only know someone very important is working within The Collective to help bring it down. How will you know who this person is? I would rely on the one you are trying to save… she will know. You want that insider leaving the U.N. with you, because that person will be the key to understanding how to save this planet from disaster. If you exit that building alone, you have failed and may as well drop to your knees and let one of the undead have its way with you.”

  “What about this favor?” Sam snarled.

  “Someone within The ZDC owes us a lot of money. We want his ass delivered to us – alive.”

  Sam allowed his jaw to briefly hit the floor. And, as if on cue, the sounds of distant screamers echoed within the warehouse.

  “Did you hear that?” Sam pointed upward. “That is the sound of fear, and fear is the new currency.”

  “I don’t follow,” the tall man replied.

  “Money is no longer relevant.” Sam’s stoic tone undercut the screaming. “Look around you! It’s the end of the fucking world. What good will cash do you now? You can’t spend it. You need something, you take it. It’s a looter’s paradise and your money isn’t welcome here.”

  “Money will always be relevant… even when brains aren’t. This whole freak-show has been in the works for a long, long time. We did everything we could to help stop it, but our efforts failed. One of the fat cats on the inside wound up owing us a grand sum after he hired us to neutralize the NYPD. At the time we had no idea the reason why, we just saw the dollar signs and agreed. When the deed was done, and the son of a bitch refused to pay up, well, we vowed to get even. That is all beside the point at the moment. Your only concern is getting the target back here so you can get that kill switch removed from your neck. And, while extracting our target, feel free to rescue yours. I believe there are three of them. Well… four now.”

  With the trap firmly implanted in his neck, Sam had little choice. His instincts begged him to offer up a hearty ‘fuck you’ to the men in the suits to the tune of a bullet between each pair of eyes, but the thought of leaving behind Bethany and her sidekicks was too cowardly for Sam’s tastes. Besides, Sam knew Bethany was onto something with the cure. It could be within the realm of the possible she had truly discovered the means to rid the world of this plague. If that was the case, it was Sam’s duty to do everything he could to help see her work through to the end.

  “How much time are you giving us?” Sam nodded to the leader.

  “This isn’t a game show. There is no time limit. Take as long as you need. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that the good folks at the U.N. might be in more of a hurry to make very good use of your precious Bethany, so you might want to expedite your rescue plans.”

  Sam knew the man was right. Bethany, Michelle, and Jean were in danger. The sooner Sam’s group could get to them the better their chances of survival.

  “I assume you and your crew are amply armed?” The suited man spoke up.

  As if on cue, Sam’s crew revealed the cold steel of their weapons. The sound of each machine locking and loading rang out in the large room. Not one weapon was pointed at anyone. The display was nothing more than a show of force… a testosterone parade.

  “Armed,” said Sellers with a wicked grin.

  “And dangerous,” added Dirt Bag, like he’d cast himself in some post-modern sci-fi action thriller where the robot gets the girl.

  The leader of the suits smiled and nodded, impressed with Sam’s team. Sam was surprised the strangers didn’t reciprocate with their own display of power. The black suits remained standing, focused forward, not even flinching when yet more screeches peeled off the concrete walls of the building.

  The head of the suits gave Sam the lowdown on the target. The man’s name – John Burgess, a big wig who served as some pseudo-chair of a multi-national head-up-the-ass corporation that thought it had the solution for what ailed the world. To Sam, the whole fuck-show smacked so much of the old Enron scandal it made him to want to turn simian and spend his days flinging shit across padded rooms.

  Fortunately Sam had spent enough time reading Jacob’s journal and Bethany’s blog to know Armageddon was nothing more than yet another corporate and political scheme to herd and tame the masses. Everything he knew about the new world nightmare gave him reason enough to commit full-blown hari-treason against his country – with the sole purpose being to save said country.

  It was a long shot. But then again, everything was a long shot now.

  Sam was about to extend the ‘Let’s fuck the man’ hand to the men in the suits when the sound of chaos suddenly became no longer a distant warning. Screams and moans were up close and very much personal. It was go time.

  “Incoming!” Ronald screamed as he rolled to the ground and popped off a few perfectly placed shots. Two Screamers dropped to the ground, ready to return to the dirt.

  Chaos reigned supreme as, one by one, the Screamers and Moaners poured into the building. Fragments of orders could be heard between screeches and gunshots. Somehow among the cacophony, both Sam’s troops and the suits were working as a team.

  The living formed a circle – asses to the center, faces toward the damned. As the bullets popped, so too did the flesh and bone of the zombies. A continuous barrage of bullets thumped through dead flesh, spraying bits and chunks all around.

  Not one soldier missed.

  Yet the undead continued pouring into the building.

  “What do we do?” Sellers screamed.

  “Not die!” Dirt Bag responded.

  With every shot a fountain of rotten blood and gore gushed into the air like a display of macabre fireworks.

  Sam dropped a fast approaching screamer and, when the beast was no longer blocking his view, an idea formed.

  “Over there… those barrels. Is that what I think it is?” Sam yelled above the din of industrial popcorn.

  “Tanning fluids! Highly flammable. I like the way you t
hink,” one of the suits barked his reply. “We light the perimeter of this place up and we can hop back in our cars and get the hell out!”

  The rest of the soldiers were too busy fending off the nightmarish onslaught to join in on the conversation.

  “We need to get that liquid on the floor around the building. How are we going to do that that? We’d never be able –”

  Before the suit could finish the sentence Dom took off towards the closest of barrels. All eyes wanted desperately to watch the former NFL star do what he did best, but most were still too busy taking down the undead enemy.

  Those that did steal a glance witnessed greatness. In true form, Dom plowed over, spun around, and leaped over zombie after zombie. He even allowed one Moaner to get close enough for a ‘no you don’t’ straight-arm to the forehead that snapped the neck of the unsuspecting drooler.

  Dom was using the only weapon he knew how to use – his body. He made it to the first collection of barrels unscathed. Without hesitation, Dom attacked the containers. When the first group of barrels was busy spilling its contents on the ground, Dom took off, at a dangerously fast pace, for the next group. The display of speed, agility, and strength was about as impressive a thing as Sam had seen in a long while.

  Dom was approaching the last group of barrels when a Screamer dropped from a window, landing close enough to the sprinting man to take him down with a single, flailing arm. Sam saw the ambush and attempted to get a shot off before Dom and the zombie were tangled up. A cloud of dust concealed what was happening.

  Time, it seemed, had taken a holiday within the inner workings of Sam’s body. He waited, patiently, for the dust to settle. All around him, chaos was lashing out with screams, bullets, and death.

  But for Sam, time had simply stopped.

  Even the dust cloud around Dom seemed to hang in the air longer than it should… a scene from a forgotten Hollywood action flick with too much budget and too little story. The gunshots seemed, oddly enough, to echo the drop in time’s tempo.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  The heavy metal tattoo of serious weaponry joined the fun and stretched its sound to the extreme.

  Sam tried to let loose a scream, but it seemed only the lowing of a lone cow could be heard.

  “Dom!”

  And just as unexpectedly as the time-shift in Sam’s head began, it ended. Dom popped up from out of the dust cloud and sprinted off to his next target.

  The machine gun barrage continued.

  The down-pour of screams from the windows continued.

  Capture the flag in Hell.

  Dom finally managed to complete the circuit and began the lightning sprint back to home base. As much as Sam wanted to stay positive, he expected Dom to get dog-piled by a mass of the undead just before reaching the group.

  Fate, it seemed, wouldn’t get to have its way with the young runner’s back-side. The power house made it back, put his hands on his knees, and breathed in deeply the air of ‘hell yeah!’

  “Everyone get in the cars and get ready to haul ass,” Sam barked.

  Not a single man (or Sellers) argued with the command. Commander Leamy went to the trunk of his car and rummaged around for something to ignite the combustible liquid encircling the room. He finally happened upon an emergency kit containing a flare.

  Closing the trunk, Sam popped open the flare, causing it to light up with a searing red glow. The flame danced in Sam’s eyes.

  “It’s about to get warm in here. Everyone ready?” Sam’s question was as much a warning as it was rhetorical.

  Sam cocked his right arm back and heaved the flare has hard as he could.

  The flare landed just short of its mark.

  But just as Sam was about ready to lay down a litany of florid four-letter words in the name of Murphy and his Law, a Screamer’s foot landed on the flare and, when the beast pushed off with the offending foot, the flare kicked back just enough to reach the spilled liquid.

  The whoosh and boom of the explosion was enough to send every zombie within the building packing to Crazy Town. The fire quickly consumed the warehouse, giving the gang all the cover it needed for an escape.

  One after the other, the two cars flashed through the fire, escaping blaze and bite in a single instant. The hoorah inside Sam’s getaway mobile was beat only by the thunderous roar of the engine. Sam had his foot buried to the floor of the car – pushing pistons to a certain, premature end of life.

  “Dom – you were in-fucking-credible!” Sellers smacked the young hulk of a man on the shoulder, sending a smile of pride to his lips.

  “Yeah Dom, those NFL moves pretty much saved our asses,” Sam added.

  For the first time, since the end of the world, Dom felt like he belonged to something … something of meaning. He let the emotion of the moment spread through his chest and his head. The smile on his lips lingered.

  “Now, what to do with the suits?” Sam gave his thoughts voice. He wasn’t sure if he should follow the sedan or peel off toward the U.N. Building. First, second, and third thoughts skipped across the playing fields of Sam’s mind. Just before Leamy was about to play a mental game of rock, paper, scissors a phone rang somewhere inside the car.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  “Someone care to answer their damned phone?” Dirt Bag complained.

  When no one confessed to owning said ringing phone, Sam realized why; the phone was a plant – most likely by the suits. The mobile had been tossed into the car and was at his feet.

  Leamy instructed Dom to reach down and grab the phone from the floorboard. When the ringing device finally made its way into Sam’s hand, the phone was answered.

  “Yeah?” his voice both curious and suspicious. “Right. Yeah. Okay.”

  After the tense, brief conversation, Sam hung up and waited for curiosity to bite the ass of everyone in the car. It didn’t take long.

  “Well?” It was, of course, Sellers that broke first.

  “The suits just calling to remind me of the time bomb attached to my neck – that and to give me the drop off location for after we pry our target from the safety of the U.N.” Sam stopped, seemingly mid-thought, to make sure everyone was paying close attention. “So, are we doing this?” The thought was lofted to the crowd within the car.

  It was Ronald that didn’t skip a beat when he said, “Of course we do this. I’m not going to be part and parcel to the death of the great Sam Leamy. No way, sir!”

  One by one, the rest of the crew agreed with Ronald.

  “So… it’s off to see the Wizard eh?” Sam offered a wicked grin that would melt the heart of anyone with a sinister urge and pointed the car toward their target.

  The Zero Day Collective.

  Chapter 20

  U.N. Building New York, NY

  December 2015

  “Professor, I believe you will want to see this.”

  A member of the junior medical staff rushed into my office, a mixture of terror and curiosity in his eyes.

  Silently I stood and followed the pup down the hall… it became quite apparent where we were heading.

  “We don’t know how, but we believe Patient Number Two has been infected and is currently mid-amplification,” the junior med said proudly, as if he were the attending physician who not only discovered Jean’s condition, but the virus itself.

  “Thank you. That will be all.” With a wave of the hand, I dismissed the curiosity. He started to protest, but I silenced him with another, more forceful, wave.

  What awaited me beyond the door was without a doubt my doing. That, I already knew. I also knew the amplification signaled the patient was ready for the second phase of the test. The fact that someone else knew of the amplification was a problem. A problem that must be resolved quickly before word spread and The Board discovered something that was not only already in motion, but was completely counter to their goals.

  Hope. That’s what I wanted to bring back to manki
nd. After seeing what I had seen and knowing what I knew, the notion was almost laughable now. Unless my experiment produced a miracle, there was little reason for hope.

  With that pleasant thought filling my sails with black wind, my fingers grasped the handle of the door and opened the gateway to yet another living Hell.

  Jean was thrashing about on his bed. His skin had begun to take on a translucent color and his eyes looked as if they’d been filled with wood glue and held open to dry. His voice was little more than ragged breaths and grunts.

  What had to be done next would be dangerous should Jean’s bindings come loose.

  “Jean, you’re barely in there I know. What’s happening to you was planned… by me. You have no reason to trust me at the moment, but my goal is to now cure you. I had no choice but to amplify your virus.” I knew words would have no effect. Maybe they were voiced simply to soothe my own conscience.

  Regardless of who needed soothing the most, it was obvious who needed the cure. I pulled the hidden syringe out of my pocket and quickly stabbed the point in the doctor’s IV to inject the cure. The liquid had to course through his entire vascular system quickly.

  After I removed the hypo, I instinctively backed away from the bed. The Heizer Sequence had very diverse effects on patients. Some would go completely placid while others’ reactions veered toward the far more violent. Should Jean react negatively he could easily break his bonds and, well, I was never one for stating the obvious.

  Fortunately Jean’s inner beast seemed to quiet as the Sequence eased into his system. Although his breathing was shallow and rapid, his body seemed relaxed – a counterpoint I could deal with.

  The syringe was quietly capped and returned to my pocket. There was one more issue I had to deal with. That issue required me to obtain an extra vial of infected blood.