by L. T. Ryan
He tried not to think of what might be lurking in the darkened rooms he passed. His goal was to get to the next hallway then to the stairs. That’s where he’d find Turk. He was sure of it. The stairs were the key to finding the remaining men and getting out of the building as a team.
These things we do so that others may live.
He picked up his pace as the light that flooded the hall from the adjacent corridor grew brighter. He had almost broken into a run when three afflicted beings stepped out from behind the wall, blocking his entrance to the corridor. Their eyes glowed bright, standing out amid their pale, shaded skin.
Sean stopped and reached for the MP7 strapped across his chest. He aimed and fired in a matter of seconds, sending three bullets flying, hitting one of the zombies in the face and forehead. It fell to the ground as the other two shuffled toward Sean.
Sean’s initial panic began to fade. These weren’t mutated in the same manner as those afflicted who could cross distances faster than any man. They were fifteen yards out and he felt as though he had plenty of time. He aimed at the one on the left, then squeezed the trigger. Three bullets launched in rapid succession. His aim had been off though, and the bullets started at dead center and then rose up into its neck. The wounds were fatal, not immediately so, though. Sean took a step back, re-aimed, fired. This time the first bullet slammed into the creature’s forehead and the other two hit near enough.
The final zombie shuffled closer, now ten yards out.
Sean aimed and took a deep breath.
Eight yards out. Plenty of distance. Plenty of time.
Sean exhaled.
Seven yards, then six.
Sean pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Five yards.
He squeezed the trigger, again.
Click. Nothing.
Four yards.
He let go of the MP7 and reached for his side arm. In his haste, he struggled to free the weapon from its holster.
Three yards, then two. With its outstretched arms, the zombie was no more than four feet away.
Sean freed his pistol and began firing wildly, hitting the afflicted being in its legs, then its torso and neck and head. It dropped to its knees, then fell forward, landing less than twelve inches from Sean’s feet.
Sean bent over at the waist and dropped his face into his palms, searing his forehead against the scorching hot barrel of his M9. The pain of the burn helped him to focus. He steadied himself and placed his hands on his knees and took several deep breaths. He became aware of the fact that he did not have enough ammunition to continue. He’d have to double back and retrieve extra rounds from Karl, and maybe even get his M4 from the command room. Was there time, though? Sean straightened his body and turned at the waist to look down the dark corridor behind him.
His eyes were off the lifeless body in front of him for a few seconds, but that was all it took. In a flash, the zombie propelled itself up and forward, sinking its teeth into Sean’s left leg, right above the knee.
Sixteen
Turk stayed low and moved into the shadows along the edge of the room. The moment his back touched the wall, he flattened himself against it. Five dark figures and five sets of bright eyes passed through the open doorway. They entered in a single file line, shuffling tight to one another. The one at the front of the line scanned the room, his eyes moving from the right to the left. His gaze passed by Turk, then stopped a second later. Those glowing eyes scanned the area around Turk, taking their time, but never stopping on him. The zombie’s head swung to the right and it began shuffling along the outer perimeter of the room, toward the wall opposite Turk’s position.
Turk lifted his foot, began sidestepping to his right, toward the doorway. If he could avoid having to discharge his weapon, he would. It would only take one of those damn things to reach him for it to all be over. There was no one else alive, which meant there was no one who could save him if he were attacked. Turk was no longer on the offensive. The name of the game had become survival.
He caught a glimpse of the remains of Ruiz and the other men. So many lives lost, and for no good reason. They should have been told what they were getting into instead of being fed a bullshit story. The anger rose inside of him like the bitter taste of bile in his throat. How could he face the families of the men who’d lost their lives under his command?
Turk noticed that the pain in his arm had intensified and traveled from his forearm to his shoulder. What if he had become infected from the bite? Screw it, he thought. Let him become infected. Then those in command would pay. Turk’d be their worst nightmare if he became a zombie.
From that point on, Turk alternated between looking at the door to the stairs, and the creatures on the wall opposite him. They didn’t seem to notice that he was in the room. Or perhaps they didn’t care. Whatever the reason, he decided not to wait around and find out. He knew there could be more of them waiting for him once he stepped into the stairwell. However, he’d deal with that if and when it was necessary.
As he approached the remaining bodies of his team, Turk stopped. He contemplated gathering something from each man to return to their families. He decided against it, though, realizing that anything they wore might contain traces of whatever it was that turned humans into the creatures that rattled the bowels of the facility. The thought crossed his mind again that he might be infected. And at that moment, he realized that he’d been feeling lightheaded and nauseous since he’d been bitten. He wondered if the sickness could be transferred through bodily fluids.
It didn’t matter. Turk had decided he wouldn’t die inside the facility. He’d rather stand on solid ground and let a five-hundred pound bomb finish him off while the sun shone on his ass, than to go down amid the foul stench that surrounded him.
He looked away from the room where the bodies of tortured souls and the bodies of his fellow SEALs lay. Turk stepped through the doorway, pulling it shut tight behind him, sealing off the stairwell. He clutched the MP7 in both hands, inched to his right to check the stairs that led down to the third floor. They were empty, save for the smeared blood that covered each step. Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, he started up the stairs.
As Turk approached the landing, he heard a scream from further up the stairwell. The scream was not one of the afflicted, though. It belonged to a human. He knew at that moment someone was still alive. Turk ran up the stairs, ignoring the pain in his arm that flared up with each jarring step.
He rounded the corner to the final set of stairs and froze in his tracks. At the top, on the landing stood one of them. It hunched over and stared down at him with menacing red eyes.
Turk attempted to aim, but before he could set his sights, the zombie leapt from the platform. Turk fired without aiming, spraying the air with three burst shots. The zombie’s body flinched a few times, and Turk figured he landed a couple shots, but had no idea where. Not the head, he guessed by the way the creature began clawing at his face after it landed on top of him.
Turk’s weapon had been knocked loose from his hands and he was unable to regain control of it. He reached up and grabbed the afflicted by its neck, holding his arms at full extension to keep the zombie’s mouth as far away as possible. Thick strands of saliva dripped from its mouth and onto Turk’s wrists and forearms. No matter how hard Turk squeezed, the zombie didn’t seem to notice. It kept snapping away at the air, perhaps expecting that Turk’s face would be within range at some point.
Turk let go with his right hand and let his arm fall. He rolled onto his left side and drew his right knee up, allowing him to reach the knife he had sheathed against his calf. The blade slipped out of its leather holster. Turk brought the knife up, adjusting it so that the blade faced the hostile being on top of him. With a quick and decisive movement, Turk whipped his arm toward his head, then swung it toward the zombie, driving the knife through its left eye, into its brain. The zombie went limp. Turk shoved it to the left, pushing and kicking to g
et the foul creature off of his body.
Turk rose and fired three rounds into the zombie’s head, ensuring it had experienced an unpleasant second death.
He raced to the top of the stairs and stopped at the foot of the hallway. The screams were louder here, and he now knew for sure they belonged to a human. Turk ran down the corridor, turned left at the adjoining hall and raced to the end where it met with the main perimeter hallway. He peeked around the corner and saw a body on the floor, then another, and beyond that, two bodies that seemed to be joined together. He shone his light and saw that an afflicted was on top of Sean, and the PJ seemed to be losing the battle.
Turk squeezed the trigger of his MP7, firing the rounds into the ceiling in an effort to distract the zombie. It worked. The being rose up from Sean’s body and faced Turk.
Turk shone his light and saw the being’s face covered in blood. Turk’s heart sunk as he feared for Sean’s life. Without hesitation, he fired, hitting the zombie in the chest. He lined up his next shot and sent three bullets flying. The first shot was true, and the zombie fell.
Turk stepped over the dead being and knelt next to Sean. “Ryder,” Turk said. “Talk to me.”
“My leg,” Ryder said.
Turk looked down and saw that Ryder’s leg had been chewed to the bone, perhaps into it, right above the knee. He feared that the femoral artery had been severed and that Ryder would bleed out. There was already a significant puddle of blood on the floor.
“Sean,” Turk said. “Listen to me. I’m going to apply a tourniquet to your leg. Okay? You understand?”
Ryder opened his eyes and nodded, then he said, “What happened to your arm?”
“One of them bit me, too.”
Ryder reached into his pocket and pulled out the syringe.
“What’s that?” Turk said.
“Antidote,” Ryder said. “Should be three doses. One for you, one for me, and one for Karl, if it’s not too late.”
Turk tried not to show any excitement over the fact that one of his men was still alive. He finished applying the tourniquet to Ryder’s leg, then he grabbed the syringe and pulled the cap off. He stuck the needle into Sean’s right thigh, and pressed the plunger, dispensing about a third of the liquid into the PJ. He pulled the syringe out, wiped it on a clean patch of his shirt, then stuck it in his own arm, being careful to use only half of the remaining liquid. He pulled it back out and capped it, then stuck it in his pocket.
“I don’t think I can walk,” Ryder said, offering a half-smile.
Turk figured most men displayed some kind of false bravado in situations like this. He was certain that Ryder had seen it time and again during his missions and now was giving Turk the same treatment.
“Don’t worry,” Turk said. “I got you. Just tell me if something comes at us from behind.”
“I’ll do better,” Ryder said. “I’ll shoot the bastards.”
“Make sure you give me a warning,” Turk said as he lifted Ryder off the ground and placed him over his shoulder. “I’d rather not go deaf in here.”
Both men looked at each other and laughed.
Turk hustled down the hall, and then slowed as he approached the corner. There was no stealthy way to check around the corner without setting Sean down, and Turk didn’t want to do that, as it might place the man at risk of going into shock. Turk stepped around with his weapon aimed in front of him. He saw Karl sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall. Karl’s eyes were closed and his head bent over. Turk couldn’t tell if the man was dead or not.
“Karl,” Turk said.
Karl said nothing, didn’t move.
Turk stayed close to the opposite wall as he passed in front of Karl. He decided to address the man one more time.
“Karl? You okay?”
This time Karl nodded and opened his eyes. The glow they gave off was bright and intense. Turk also noticed how pale the man’s skin had become.
“Ryder, you think this antidote works if they’ve turned already?”
“No,” Sean said. “The doctor said that would be too late.”
“What doctor?”
“The doctor in the control room—”
“Never mind,” Turk said. “You tell me later. Okay, Sean? For now, watch your ears.”
Turk lifted his gun and aimed it at Karl, or rather, the being that had once been Karl. He had to think of him in those terms in order to do what had to be done. With a deep breath and a heavy heart, Turk sent three bullets into his old teammate, then turned and began running down the hall. He had no idea how long it had been since he spoke with his CO. He only knew that time was running out and it wouldn’t be long before the bombs began to fall.
Seventeen
The final fifty feet might as well have been a mile. Lactic acid had built up in Turk’s muscles and his legs burned. It took every bit of willpower he had to keep his knees pumping as he sprinted toward the tunnel that would lead them out of the facility. Getting Sean to this point had been easy, relatively speaking. Now he had to figure out how to get him to the surface while traveling through a space where neither of the men could stand up straight. He looked at Sean and performed a quick assessment of the PJ. He looked awful. He looked like a dead man. Turk wondered if Sean would be able to save a man in his condition. The thought of leaving Sean there to ensure his own safe escape crossed Turk’s mind. But he couldn’t do that. He’d already left so many behind, and adding one more would break him.
“You with me, Sean?” Turk said.
“Yeah,” Sean said through gritted teeth.
“I’m gonna need you to do some of the work here. Okay?” He set Ryder down inside the bottom lip of the tunnel. “Can you drag yourself up?”
Sean strained and grunted and pushed himself onto his right knee. Then, with Turk’s help, he stood on his right foot, letting his left leg trail behind. He shuffled around and screamed. However, the pain did not stop the man. He kept moving forward.
Turk climbed through the narrow opening, then rose to his feet in a hunched over position. He wrapped his left arm around Ryder, providing the man with extra support. He intended to help take some pressure off Ryder’s decimated leg. The two men huddled together and began making their way up the angled tunnel. After twenty feet, the buzzing that had remained constant during their stay in the facility, faded away.
“Watch for zombies,” Ryder said.
Turk smiled for a second or two when he realized that Sean had been calling the afflicted beings zombies as well. The moment of revelation passed, and he resumed feeling as though they were being followed by a horde of the creatures. Every fifteen seconds or so, he’d check over his shoulder to verify the tunnel was clear. He saw nothing each time he looked back. However, the feeling that the zombies were close by helped push Turk forward when all he wanted to do was collapse.
Turk thought back to when they entered the facility. How long had it taken them to travel through the tunnel? Was it three minutes? Five? Ten? How could something so recent feel like it had taken place so long ago? Why couldn’t he remember a detail like that? However long it had taken, he was sure that the journey out was going to take three times as long with the injured man slowing him down. Once again, the thought of leaving Ryder behind crossed Turk’s mind. But when he looked over at Sean and saw the determination on the man’s pale face, he knew he had to keep pushing on with him. Then Sean went limp and nearly dragged both Turk and himself to the ground.
“Get up, Sean,” Turk said.
“I can’t do this, Turk,” Ryder said. “Too much blood loss. Leave me.”
“Dammit, Ryder, if you’d pulled this twenty seconds ago I’d have left your ass. But you’re on my conscience now. You got that?”
Sean said nothing. His eyes fluttered back in his head.
“Get up, Sean,” Turk said. “Come on. Stand up, then take one step, then another. You can do this. I want you to think about how, in a couple weeks, you and I are gonna hook up and have some
drinks and all of this will be a memory. We’ll laugh about it as we pound back a case.”
Ryder released a primal scream as he pushed himself off the ground. It was a yell Turk was familiar with, having heard it weekly since his days in BUDs training. He helped Sean balance on his good leg, and then they resumed moving through the tunnel.
“Let’s see if we can pick it up,” Turk said. “I don’t know how much longer we have.”
“Till what?”
“They’re bombing this place.”
Turk assumed his words motivated Ryder, because the man began moving twice as fast, jumping forward with his good leg, screaming in pain when his left foot slammed into the ground. But to Turk, every cry meant they were closer to leaving the nightmare behind. They might make it out, after all.
The closer they got to the end of the tunnel, the wider it became, and it soon became possible for Turk to carry Ryder. It couldn’t have come at a better time, too. Sean’s head and torso were soaked in sweat, and his left leg covered in blood. Turk became concerned that the tourniquet had slipped. That would guarantee death for the PJ. If it had, there was nothing Turk could do, so he cast his doubts aside and pressed on.
“Stay with me, Sean.”
“I’m right here, Turk.”
They reached the end of the tunnel, and Turk fell to his knees, mostly in thanks, but partially due to exhaustion. But he knew the journey was not yet complete. They had to get out and they had to get away from the site before the bombs started falling from the sky. Turk eased Ryder to the ground, then got back on his feet. He stepped toward the door, placed his hand on the knob and spun it to the left until he heard a click.
“I’m gonna check it out first,” Turk said.
Ryder nodded and said nothing as he glanced down toward his leg. Turk noticed a bemused look wash over Sean’s face.
“What?” Turk said.