by Jack Wallen
The order was given and all Sam could do was sit back and wait to see if any other leadership was necessary. Or so he thought.
Although the majority of the local zombie contingency was busy chasing down their next meal in the adjacent building, there were a few clueless stragglers only just getting the memo of the grand buffet. Unfortunately, for Sam, some of those wandering, wondering meat sacks found their way to his location.
The idea of a little target practice was appealing, but Sam knew the noise would only serve to draw much unwanted attention.
“Just how many ways are there to skin a zombie?” Commander Leamy asked of the universe.
The universe did not reply.
Sam didn’t give a fuck what the universe had to say anyway. Instead he popped the trunk, got out of the car, went to the back, and pulled out something a little extra special he had packed for such a situation.
Said extra special something was a prototype miniature flamethrower capable of crisping an entire pack of moaners within seconds, from a distance, to guarantee not one target got up close and personal enough to nosh on your noggin.
“Come on guys, can’t we just talk this out? Seriously. I didn’t know they were your wives.” Sam tossed out a little humor to pass the time until the shambling army of undead was within roasting range.
“You never listen. I talk and talk, and it seems like you’re in your own little world. Oh well. I guess you deserve to burn in Hell.”
And with that, Sam opened fire on the gang of zombies who lit up like walking Halloween candles. The fat beneath their skin quickly bubbled and melted away. The moaners took a few more steps toward Sam and then dropped. By the time they hit their knees, their eyes popped out of the orbits with a hiss. When the monster’s skulls hit the sidewalk they exploded like rotten watermelons. Gore and the usual thick, brownish blood spilled over the cement as the fire slowly burned out with no more meat to cook.
The smell had the exact opposite of the expected results – it made Sam hungry. He wanted barbeque.
“I’d pull out a rib and start gnawing if I didn’t think I’d get seriously sick,” Sam threatened before replacing the flamethrower in the trunk. As much fun as a zombie roast was, he had to be within hearing distance of the radio at all times.
“What’s the SITREP?” he called out to Sellers, afraid he might have missed something.
“Almost ready to breach the ninth floor,” Sellers replied.
Sam knew the waiting game was going to be a son of a bitch. He should be in the building, leading his team through the maze of shit. Instead, he was stuck in the role of designated driver in a getaway car, attempting to give as much guidance as possible.
The situation reminded him of when he was originally dropped into Paris and told to wait for a possible living hostile to show. The waiting had been an exercise in anger management. After a few days Sam had become so itchy for action he feared he would start shooting shadows. When the zombies appeared, the soldier had been elated to have moving targets – even if the targets were nothing more than bumbling, stumbling Moaners. In the end, it mattered little how fast or slow they moved, so long as there was meat to drop.
Of course, when Bethany announced their arrival at Sam’s house, everything was turned on its proverbial head. Being career military, Sam was unaccustomed to asking questions. So when Bethany began dropping truth-bomb after truth-bomb, the commander’s eyes opened quite wide. The purpose he thought he served turned out to be a lie. Even though he swore to accept and execute all orders without question, he had taken that oath when it was clear who the good and bad guys were. Now, the only sure thing was chaos.
Lost in his past, Sam was unaware of the lone Moaner reaching into the car for the only living brain matter in the vicinity. The thing wrapped its rotten, cold fingers around the man’s head and jerked him out of his seat. The muscles in Sam’s neck involuntarily tensed up – saving him from either a broken neck or an epic case of whiplash.
With the flamethrower tucked out of reach, Sam had only his hands and feet to defend himself and, ultimately, take down this latest annoyance.
Crack.
Sam’s head slammed against the pavement.
“You son of a – ”
Crack.
Sam kicked up with his legs, barely missing the neck of the moaner.
Crack.
Stars punctuated the action of his head smacking against the pavement.
The sour-milk eyes looked down upon its next meal to be. Nothing registered within the soiled orbits – it was a haunting vision Sam would never forget. It was also a vision that gave Sam an idea. With his right hand Sam violently poked upwards, two fingers, in his best Three Stooges salute. Each finger violated an eyeball, popping through the sockets and into the gray matter of the monster. Yanking downward with all of the strength he could muster, he managed to pull free the front section of the beast’s skull. Bits of flesh and bone rained down on Sam’s face, slopping his forehead and hair with gore.
The newly dead undead dropped onto Sam, an incident he was growing none-too-fond and way-too-weary of.
“Fuck! I am really getting sick of this shit!” Sam Leamy was never considered, by anyone, squeamish; but the amount of entrails, blood, brains, and bits that had found their way onto his person of late was starting to get under his skin.
Without putting too much pressure on his bad leg, the victor stood and made his way back to the driver’s seat of the car. This time, however, he closed the door and rolled up the window. One of the team’s backup shirts served as a towel to wipe off the worst of the spoils of his war. Unfortunately, the smell of decay wouldn’t go away. A market full of dead, rotting flesh was hidden away in Sam’s sinuses. The stench was there for the long haul.
Chapter 30
Undisclosed location
July 2015
Begin encryption
My dear Lindsay,
I received your last message detailing the plan involving what I am calling the Mengele Sequence. Based on the projected outcome of the amplification, I have decided the only chance I will have of surviving and possibly structuring and assembling a cure would be to masquerade as one of the scientists assigned to The Zero Day Collective. I used the contact you gave me and have been accepted onto the team. Although their designs go against every moral for which I have based my career and character, I will blend in and do everything I can to not only further our work, but ensure what you and I have created will defeat the virus your device will amplify.
I do not fear death. I do not fear what I cannot know. What I fear is that you and I may never see each other again.
Actually, that is not completely true. I do not fear that. I am actually quite certain you and I will never see one another again.
If there was anything I could do to take us back to those days we shared in the lab, I would. Not only do I miss the time we spent together, I miss when we knew, beyond all doubt, that what we were doing was good. Together we bettered mankind, made it safe, helped it heal.
Lindsay, I want to know that what we are doing is right and just. I understand you have been placed in a dangerous position and you made the decision to go ahead with the project knowing my work would most likely cure the effects. But even then, you knew the initial loss of life would be staggering. That is what I cannot grasp. Please, help me understand your decision. I want to support you and your work in Munich, but unless I know why you are doing this, I cannot.
I love you,
Danielle.
End encryption
Chapter 31
U.N. Building
December, 2015
“Follow me!” My voice, just above a whisper, commanded our little army.
Order could so easily and quickly disintegrate into chaos. The floors below us were filled with screeches and screams the likes of which only a Halloween Haunted House should know. Above us it was gunshots and heavy-booted footsteps. Which way seemed more appealing? At the moment, the
idea of leaping out a window was, quite possibly, the most attractive option. That choice would serve no purpose other than to end my own personal torment. Besides, I knew the world needed me and my cure.
My feet swiftly carried me to the stairwell entrance. There was no way I was about to chance an elevator trip – not when the elevators could be easily controlled. Thankfully, Jean managed to regain the full use of his legs, so we weren’t hindered by any handicap. Once all of us were within the confines of the stairwell, I laid out my overly-simplistic plan.
“Run as fast as you can up these stairs, until you hit the roof.” It was the only idea I could come up with and it made the fairly grandiose assumption that our rescuers were waiting for us up top. Even if Sam and company were not there, the roof offered the location in the building farthest from the oncoming tide of death.
We took off upwards. Fear, being our ultimate motivator, helped to make the stairs fly by. The all-too-obvious screeching of one of the undead rose up from the stairs below us. The sound echoed off the walls, making the lone zombie seem like an army.
“Shit, that thing is getting closer. What do we do?” My voice carried a sickening nervousness.
“Leave this to me,” Bethany called out over her shoulder, back in her element.
We all continued upward. I braved a glance over my shoulder to see Bethany crouched on one knee, the pistol raised and ready to unload on the charging enemy.
Something in the back of my mind wanted to shout. When the monster was in range Bethany pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The beast roared and she pulled the trigger again. Nothing.
“Fuck! My gun jammed!” Bethany cried out as the Screamer dove on top of her, the two rolling down the flight of stairs.
Without a word, Jean took off after the melee.
“Bethany!” The gentle man cried out, some manner of rage forcing his voice into a dark place he was probably none-too-familiar with.
Two weakened humans. One very pissed-off zombie. No weapons. No chance.
“Stay here, Michelle. I’ll be back.” I couldn’t believe I was about to join the fight, but there was no way I was going to leave two people, recently terrorized by my own hands, to die without fighting by their side.
As I descended the stairs, the sounds that greeted my ears let me know both Bethany and Jean were still alive. When I was finally close enough to make out the various limbs and body parts of the pile, I was surprised how very much alive they were.
Jean was on top of the zombie, his feet pinning the thing’s arms to the ground and the full weight of his upper body resting on the monsters stomach. Bethany was kneeling at the thing’s shoulders, its head in her hands. With as much force as she could conjure, Bethany was twisting the head of the zombie clockwise.
I couldn’t believe what my eyes saw. Bethany and Jean were working together to snap the beast’s neck – and quite possibly twist it off.
Such a perfect and elegant murder.
The zombie wasn’t about to go gentle into that good night without putting up a fight. The thing’s legs kicked up in an attempt to connect with Jean’s head. Realizing even the slight weight of my body could be of help, I rushed down and dropped onto the monster’s legs.
Bethany let loose a scream. Obviously the force required to twist an undead head off was no easy feat. Judging from the popping and snapping sounds, she was actually making progress.
The beast let loose a garbled roar.
“Oh my God!” Jean cried out as if about to lose what little sanity he had remaining.
Finally, with the sound of a two-by-four snapping in half, the screamer’s head twisted beyond one-hundred-eighty degrees. The legs of the victim went limp and Bethany let out an exhausted but victorious shout.
Not a word was spoken as we stood and made our way back to where Michelle waited. What could be said after twisting the head off of something that was once a living human? I couldn’t imagine anything worse being required of us at that point.
“I swear I heard something.” An unfamiliar voice came from the stairs above us. I couldn’t think of how anyone from The ZDC could have managed to find us… unless they knew this was our only way out. We certainly couldn’t retreat back down, not when chaos had fully usurped order and embedded in every molecule and fiber in its path. Downward was certain death. Upward was simply unknown.
“Up. Continue up. We’ll deal with whoever that is, however we can.” My voice found some hidden confidence.
“Bethany, I’m really scared.” Michelle was nearing tears.
“Shhh…” I hated to seem so cold, but we couldn’t, at this point, risk giving anything away.
“I fucking hate stairwells,” an unfamiliar, female voice spoke strongly.
“You fucking hate everything, Sellers,” an unknown male voice replied.
“You mean she hates fucking everything.” Yet another unknown male voice.
“Almost there, Sam,” the female voice finally spoke the closest thing to a magical phrase I’d ever heard.
“Sam!” Bethany beat me to the punch by sprinting upward.
I took off after her. One more flight of stairs had us face to face with the owners of the voices. The name ‘Sam’ made it clear these soldiers were not with The Collective.
“You said Sam. Did you mean Sam Leamy?” Bethany practically begged the stranger to say ‘yes.’
“Bethany?” the female soldier asked.
Bethany nodded and then proceeded to fall to her knees crying.
“Target acquired.” The woman spoke into a government-issue radio.
“Bethany, my name is Sellers. We’re going to get you and your friends out of here.” The soldier helped the weeping woman up. “We only know of three. Are you Michelle?”
“No, I’m…”
“She’s with us,” Bethany interrupted before I could give the extraction team my name.
“Are you here to save us?” Michelle spoke through sobs.
“Yes ma’am. If you’ll all just follow me and Dom up topside, we’ll get you away from this building. The other members of our team have one more extraction to make.” The woman spoke quickly.
“Who else are you pulling out of here, and why?” I insisted.
“John Burgess, ma’am,” Sellers snapped the name out.
They knew. They knew the man, the man behind apocalypse.
John Burgess. Original surname unknown. Both his mother and father were killed in Auschwitz. John, the only child, manage to somehow escape, carrying with him a hatred that would never subside. The same rage that chilled and drove forward his heart helped him to amass a fortune to eventually fund the research for the Mengele Virus and the creation of the Quantum Fusion Generator.
Burgess had one single goal – revenge. There was only one problem with his plan. Of all the brilliant minds on the planet, only one had an adequate grasp on quantum mechanics to actually design and create a generator powerful enough to amplify the virus to wipe out an entire country. That man, Dr. Lindsay Godwin, was at the time busy helping me to create the Heizer Sequence – a very specific chain of molecules that would help to cure the world of every known deadly disease. There was no way they could pull Lindsay away from our work.
Only they did.
With the promise of unlimited funds to pay for our further research on the sequence, Lindsay couldn’t turn down such an offer. The Heizer Sequence Lab was constantly under the threat of closure due to the lack of funding. So Lindsay accepted the offer from what would eventually be known as The Zero Day Collective.
And then, everything went to Hell.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” A young soldier had his hands placed gently on my elbow, startling me out of my thoughts.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“We’re on a tight schedule. If we don’t find Burgess –”
“I can lead you directly to him,” I interrupted the man.
The idea of taking that fat bastard down with this sinking ship gave me an infin
ite sense of retribution. All this time, the only thing that had actually mattered to me was completing the cure and getting the hell away from this building and everything it stood for. The thought of destroying the man who single-handedly brought the world to its knees had not occurred to me.
The thought, I had to admit, felt really good.
“Bethany, are you able to make it up the stairs?” One of the other soldiers seemed overly concerned about the woman.
“Yes. Just get me the fuck out of this hateful place,” Bethany demanded.
Sellers instructed one of the other soldiers, Dom, to lead the three survivors to the roof. When Dom began to protest, Sellers insisted. The small group took off upwards.
The soldiers pulled into the front of the pack so I could instruct them where to go. We quickly marched up the required flights of stairs to the floor holding the target. As soon as we reached the landing, the soldiers went to work with whispers, hand signals, and the checking of weapons.
“Ma’am, I hate to ask you this, but we need your help in identifying our target. We will lead you in and as soon as you see Burgess, point him out. Once we have acquired the target, we return to the stairs and make our way up. You stay as close to us as possible the entire time. Is that clear?” Sellers spoke quietly, efficiently.
I nodded, and immediately one of the men yanked open the door. We all stepped into chaos.
Screams filled the halls. Women in pressed skirt suits and heels were running around, hands in the air, sheer terror in their eyes. The small group of us slowly marched forward.
A man ran past, blood shooting between the fingers grasping at his neck. Shortly after, the reason he was running and bleeding entered the hall and screeched its disapproval.
Without hesitation, one of the soldiers lifted his weapon and let loose a hailstorm of bullets. Bits and pieces of the beast slopped and splattered the hallway. When the zombie’s head was finally and fully scattered about the area, it dropped motionless to the floor.