Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 3 | Books 7-9

by Lecter, Adrienne

  I looked at Gita for a moment, hesitating, but then went over to my pack where I’d left it, got my last three spare magazines out, crammed them into my jacket and pants, and pulled my gas mask back on. Burns was still standing by the door, right where he’d taken position the moment I’d shaken myself out of my stupor at Red’s questioning. I held his gaze evenly, as much as the slightly foggy visor would let me. “You’re not going to hold me back,” I told him evenly, not making it a question or a threat.

  “Was afraid you’d say that,” he offered, still relaxed. “But I can’t let you go in there alone.”

  That sentence—mostly the phrasing of it—made me want to crack a smile, not that anyone would have seen it.

  “What the what?” Cole offered his opinion from where he finally let go of Parker, unperturbed by the medic’s venomous looks at his back. “We got out alive. End of story.”

  Now I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Fuck your story. I’m writing my own.”

  Cole gave me a look that explained what he thought of my sanity—or obvious lack thereof. “Going back in there is suicide.” No protest from me. “Hell, woman, he sacrificed himself so you could live! They both did!”

  “I’m not going to explain this to you,” I said, biting down on my grand example of lone wolves and what they might do once their mate bit it. “I’m not asking you to come with me. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to let him die, alone, in there. I get it, someone needed to be the bait. Someone strong enough to put up a fight to draw as many of them away so that the rest could get out. Doesn’t mean I have to accept that.”

  “You are one crazy bitch,” Cole muttered—but rather than hold me back, or walk away, he pulled on his own mask. “Then let’s do it.”

  And he wasn’t the only one, I realized. Burns wasn’t really a surprise, and neither was Murdock—he had been one of Nate’s people, just like Davis, who had been with Nate before throwing their lot in with Bucky. Hill wasn’t shy to explain why—“I’m not doing this for that fucker. I’m doing this because you got balls”—but the real surprise was Richards.

  He was also the one I had a beef with. “What, suddenly you find it in you not to abandon me?” I jeered as I watched him get ready.

  He still had a hard time meeting my gaze, but there was steel to his spine when he did. “I had my orders, and they were quite explicit. It was my sole purpose in being along to make sure the samples made it out of the lab.” He pointedly looked at the elevators. “That’s outside of the complex, wouldn’t you agree?” I might not agree on principle, but we’d need every single one along, so I forced myself to swallow my ire.

  Trust it to Hamilton not to pass up a single chance to act like an asshole. “And there she goes again, killing good people for her own misguided idealism,” he offered, still leaning, relaxed as hell, against the wall at the far end of the room. He also looked ready to keep Parker from bolting or doing anything equally stupid or suicidal, but that didn’t keep him from dropping that gem.

  The rage building inside of me devoured every syllable of that, the flames getting fanned even more from the condescension in Bucky’s tone. I didn’t move a mental finger to stop them—right now, I definitely was in the mood to watch the world burn. Turning to Hamilton, I stared at him, letting him see all the derision and hatred I felt for him—and now that I had no reason whatsoever to hold back, I didn’t. I hadn’t expected him to blanch or some shit, but the humor drained from his eyes when they met mine. Oh, he knew what was going on inside of me—and for the first time he must have been considering that, just maybe, he should have kept his trap shut.

  “Are you going to try to stop me?” I jeered. Without rational thought, I felt my body kick into overdrive, gearing up for a fight that I really, really wanted to hurl myself into.

  Hamilton’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Don’t need to. It’s not like you can get in there, anyway. Security reset means that your account was deactivated. All our equipment to hack back in is on the other side of, how many were there? Three security doors. Didn’t consider that, did you?”

  He had a point; I hadn’t considered that. But the satisfaction crossing his face made it impossible for me to back down—not that I had any intention to.

  “Are you happy now that you finally managed to kill the one guy who might, deep down, still consider you his friend? And you don’t even have enough honor left to see if, maybe, you can still save him?”

  Bucky shrugged that accusation off like droplets of water. “I got orders, too. And they explicitly state that for no reason whatsoever am I allowed to jeopardize the positive outcome of the mission. That means no going back.” His gaze dropped from me to his men, those gathered around me. “I shouldn’t even allow you deadbeat assholes to try and help her.”

  The masks obscured all emotion on their faces, but I didn’t miss how Cole tensed beside me. Ah, so he really hadn’t drunk too much of the Kool-Aid yet. But none of them said anything. Guess that was my role.

  “You have a choice, you know?” I said, stepping closer to him. “You can keep antagonizing me. Riling me up. Don’t think I don’t get what you’re doing—besides being an asshole. But I’m done eating all that anger up. This time, it’s going to explode. It’s your choice whether that’s in your face, or down that corridor as I tear apart every piece of undead ass I find. You know that’s not an empty threat. You made sure that I’ve spent the entire time since we got to your base with my back against the wall. You took everything away from me that might have given me a reason to hold back—and now the last thing I had a reason to live for is dying in there. So either I die killing you, or I die trying to get to him. Your choice.”

  Deep down, I was aware that it must have been the booster screwing with my mind that made me believe those words with more conviction than was healthy—even for less suicidal notions. It definitely exacerbated my tendency to see the world in black and white only with nothing in between. My way, or no way. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t right—and he had taken pretty much everything I cared about from me. My people were alienated by their propaganda that I was working with Bucky and his people; Sadie wouldn’t forgive me for leaving her alone to have the baby, and now that I’d gotten Nate killed, she’d probably shoot me on sight. I couldn’t join Raynor in the lab, and anyway, I couldn’t risk hanging around so that Decker guy could either kill me or twist me into the perverse opposite of everything I had been fighting for. None of that had really gotten to me so far because I’d had Nate—and spending the rest of our lives together, as outcasts, in the middle of nowhere, hadn’t sounded so bad.

  But now that he was gone, what did I have left?

  I wouldn’t have called it admiration that I saw in Hamilton’s eyes—we were both too stubborn to feel that for each other—but there was definitely recognition lurking there.

  He held my gaze for another moment before he shrugged and turned around, his dismissal almost enough to make me go off in his face for good—until I saw what he pulled out of his pack. It was the severed head of one of those freak shamblers—and it was still alive, if one might have called it that, eyes rolling, teeth snapping, never mind that there was nothing below its second or third vertebra remaining.

  “What the—”

  “You’ll be needing this,” he said, thrusting the zombie head in my face by what remained of its hair.

  Keeping my irritation in check wasn’t easy. “I repeat, what the fuck?”

  Hamilton’s smile was bordering on gleeful. “Didn’t notice that the doors don’t seem to be a real hindrance for them? That’s because they aren’t. Their iris scans are in the system, even after the security reset. Grab one of your own once you’re through that door.”

  Nobody remained standing in Hamilton’s way as he made for the door, the blindly snapping head held out like a macabre lantern in front of him. And, true enough, the panel not only lit up as the thing got close enough for the scanner to activate—the LED switched
to green.

  I didn’t let doubt get in my way—or common sense for that matter—so I pushed the door open as soon as the automatic lock disengaged.

  Chapter 18

  The lights were off but the decontamination system was still on, pelting us with more corrosive liquids for the first few yards of the corridor. Then they shut off, coincidentally in sync with Hamilton pulling the door shut behind us, killing the last remaining source of light. I hadn’t considered switching my M16 for someone else’s so I still had no working light on it, which didn’t matter as five strobes were enough. I saw Murdock reach up to pull off his mask but I stopped him. “They likely have a multi-step system,” I remarked. “Hear that low hiss? That’s likely either chlorine dioxide gas, or ionized hydrogen peroxide. Wouldn’t recommend inhaling either until the complex has been aired well for a few hours.” Nobody tried taking their masks off after that.

  The corridor looked eerily like it had at our first entry—if one was to ignore the bodies on the floor. Both the spray paint and blood were gone, and already the last of the liquid was either seeping into drains or starting to dry in the light draft I felt coming down the hallway as the ventilation system switched to a different setting. Burns checked on the first downed shambler, and it only took him a few swings with one of my tomahawks to get us our own door opener. Nobody was laughing as we left the still-twitching body behind.

  The entire facility was quiet once more, the sounds we were making the only I could pick up. It was easy for me not to freak out as I was safely ensconced in my bubble of rage. Why none of the freaks tried to come after us was a mystery until we reached the point where Davis’s twisted, torn body lay underneath a heap of them. Just to be sure, Hill smashed in his head—a last token of respect, but also a good idea since we had to come back this way again. Still none of the shamblers were moving, but as I glanced at one in passing, I noticed that the skin around the bullet holes in its forehead looked weird. Signaling Cole to shine his light there, I took a closer look. Yup, it was healing, the effect even more noticeable at the much larger exit wound. Still no real explanation how they kept on after getting their brains scrambled, but then it didn’t take much for basic motor functions—even primitive amoebae could orient themselves along chemical trails. I vaguely remembered that one of the other doctors I’d checked up on—Dr. Nakamuri, I thought—had done research in growth factors and cell regeneration. The sick part of my mind briefly wondered how many test subjects he’d accidentally given cancer before turning them into freak zombies. The world was better off not knowing, and so was I.

  On we went, Richards and I taking point as we neared the common area. Still nothing moving in sight, but as we got to where the corridor opened up, I saw something scurrying away at the very edge of the cones of light we cast ahead. We stepped over the last puddle on the floor as we left the corridor, only to be greeted by much stronger gusts of air, except in the corner where the ceiling panel was still dislodged. The blood splatter had probably remained on the wall because none of the decontamination measures could reach it.

  But we didn’t turn in that direction, along the trail of bodies we’d left in our push for the exit. We went down the other hallway that was looking pristine, particularly in comparison to the other one—but only until the first corner. My heart sank further as my gaze fell on several pieces of gear scattered all across the intersection between the bioreactor wing and the labs—a boot, two guns, several empty magazines, fabric that looked like a piece of torn-off sleeve. Still no blood or drag marks, but then they would have been washed away.

  Then we reached the labs, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut as soon as that security door opened, low ultraviolet light piercing them somewhat fiercely. It wasn’t the same wavelength as what the French had used to check on our status, but the usual UV lights used in laboratories all over the world for the most basic level of decontamination—where usually the last one out switched off the lights, we also turned on the UV lamps. The glare wasn’t bad for the others—besides potentially giving them sunburn if they stayed in there for too long—but it sure was for me. That explained why the shamblers had left the labs alone—just not a good hideout if you could lurk more comfortably in the dark maintenance spaces.

  Even though the glare must have been just as bad for them—or maybe worse—there were zombies still about here, in several clumps. The first were two of them eating a third, a truly macabre display as all of them were still alive, or as alive as they got. Hill kicked them out of the way, likely upsetting the power balance. None of us cared.

  The second heap turned out to be what was left of Aimes—not much beyond torn-apart gear and cracked bones. Why waste a perfectly good body that might still have been lukewarm as whatever kept it going stopped working?

  The third were the two shamblers I’d felled, a good ten of the more intact ones feasting on them. One or two noticed us but they were too occupied to care. I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to draw too much attention to ourselves from the sound, but Cole had no such reservations, emptying an entire magazine into any head he could reach—which was pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel. Murdock and Burns helped, until none of the freaks were moving.

  The forth heap we found, in the middle corridor, was teeming with snarling, bloody shamblers, and I started shooting as soon as we were in close enough range to ensure headshots. Either alerted by the others—or smarter—they turned on us in full force. Hill had the right idea, again switching to his sledgehammer rather than a semi-useless rifle, the corridor just wide enough to let him swing unhindered. I ducked behind him, taking a knee to shoot from a crouched position whenever I had free sight. Richards broke one hand getting flung into a window, and all of us got knocked around somewhat good—but eventually, we prevailed so we could check on what was left of Tanner—or all seven major parts that had once been Tanner, in places already gnawed down to the bones.

  I really didn’t want to continue, but I had to. Because there was still one clump of snarling undead ahead, at the very end of the right-most corridor, inside one of the labs bathed in violet light.

  My eyes were tearing up to the point where my entire vision swam, making it impossible to properly focus on anything. But it was obvious what that huddle of shamblers, crawling all over each other to be able to continue their feeding frenzy meant.

  Except that there were drag marks and bloody handprints leading away from it. Across the room, underneath one of the workbenches. Across the shelves at the opposite wall, up to…

  “Fuck me,” I mumbled, blinking rapidly to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Nope, that was definitely a body—bloody, bruised, and beaten, but looking positively intact—that lay curled up inside the box of the laminar flow hood, blasted from all sides with UV light so bright that even squinting didn’t let me focus on it.

  He’d definitely put up quite the fight—now that I could concentrate on the signs, I saw them everywhere. He must have killed the two shamblers that the others were feasting on, but that wasn’t everything. Two heavy desks, a shelf, and a workbench had been overturned to create as much of a maze in the room as possible. Anything light enough to be thrown—except for the fire extinguisher by the door—was upturned, one of the windows to the corridor cracked from a desk centrifuge ending up there, now destroyed on the floor below. Tanner’s death must have bought him some time—and he’d made the best of that time that he’d been able to.

  The sound of my voice, even drowned out by the wet squelch of tearing flesh, was enough to draw all the unwanted attention I really didn’t need right then, but my body flew into action even if my mind was incapable on focusing on that right now. Rather than limit myself with a firearm in the tight space of the lab, I grabbed the heavy fire extinguisher from beside the door and used that to bash at anything bloody and snarling that came at me. And then I was past them, leaving the guys to take care of that problem. My boots slipped on the trail of blood as I careened around the corner, barely
catching myself as I pulled myself along the benches. My fingers were shaking as I reached for the lid of the hood cover, yet a hand slamming against it—from the outside—made me halt for a second. Richards was standing beside me, a gun in his uninjured left hand, giving me a quick, jerky nod to go ahead. Right. There was that conversation thing that might end with me getting my face chewed off. Not that I cared right then.

  Nate’s body barely fit into the space of the hood, and I banged his head good as I pulled him back out, the added weight making us both topple backward to the floor. Where not covered with torn pieces of clothing, his skin was burned and had started to blister in places, but that was still better than dismemberment. He was unresponsive, but the blood slowly dripping from his nose frothed every twenty seconds or so with a shallow breath. I didn’t dare take off the mask, seeing as the ionized hydrogen dioxide could easily get into the labs through any open doors, but he seemed stable enough for now. As far as I could tell, all parts were still attached, but he was bleeding badly from several deep wounds, the blood loss making the few patches of his skin that weren’t burned ghostly white.

  “You grab one leg, I’ll get the other,” Richards told me. “And grab the key.”

  “Key” was a nice term for our severed head, but I didn’t protest. My body was still so worked up that crouching on the floor over Nate’s prone body was torture; being able to move was a lot better. The others were still busy with the shamblers and gave up as soon as we were out of the lab, dragging the lifeless body between us. Burns took point, the others remained behind us, trying to keep the shamblers from following. Realizing that they’d just lost some juicy bits of warm flesh, they came after us, howling and screaming, alerting the others—and the chemical mist still diffused in the air only held them back so much.