I only realized how much when we flew out of the lab area and past the checkpoint into the corridors leading to the main part of the complex, and suddenly there were answering howls and growls coming from everywhere at once.
“Run?” I asked no one in particular.
“Run!” Cole agreed loudly from behind me before shooting down a corridor we passed.
So that’s what we did, skidding and careening into corners and silently praying that we would be quick enough. My mind locked up in a litany of “please don’t die”—and I wasn’t entirely sure if I only meant Nate or all of us. Being brave in the face of my own suicide was one thing, but being responsible—again—for someone else’s, not so much.
But we reached the exit corridor without getting torn to shreds, and while a few shamblers had wandered back in, they were much too interested in the easy food already on the ground to get in our way. Burns stopped just before the security checkpoint, waving our unencumbered runners forward before herding Richards and me along. I lobbed the head toward Hill, watching in a moment of macabre fascination as he fumbled with it. Behind us, I could hear the horde coming, the darkness so deep that I couldn’t make out more than shapes. “Hurry up!”
Hill caught his burden for good and held it up to the checkpoint. As soon as that door opened, he took off, and we were on the home stretch. My shoulders and lower back were killing me, my lungs burning with exertion and lack of air to the point where I started seeing blotches all over my vision, but I forced myself to push through. Only one more door, then we were safe—relatively speaking.
Cole reached the door first, taking up a defensive position, Murdock dropping to a knee beside him. Hill didn’t bother with stopping but let the door itself slow him down, pressing the head into the sensor field. Nothing happened for endless four seconds, then the lights turned green and the lock disengaged. Hill pretty much fell into the room; Cole and Murdock crawled through backward, their rifles trained down the corridor. One last, gigantic pull and Richards and I managed to trundle through, forcing Burns to vault over us as he hadn’t slowed down. The others were still there, even Hamilton—somewhat to my surprise—but had been smart enough to move out of the way. Russell and Munez stood ready by the door, pushing it shut as soon as we cleared it. I hadn’t planned on falling to my knees but my legs simply gave out, spilling me onto my back, just in time to see a good twenty zombies make a run for the closing gap. The door “thunked” shut not a moment too soon, the sound of several heavy impacts on the other side making not just me shudder. While everyone else was either on the floor or bent over, panting heavily, Cole tore at the cables next to the scanner panel, putting it offline for good. It shorted out with a satisfying rain of sparks, making him yelp and jump back.
“No one’s coming through that ever again,” he observed, shaking his right hand, his gloves smoking faintly. I allowed myself the hint of a grin after I tore my mask off, but that was all the attention I had to spare, forcing my mind to snap out of flight mode pronto.
In the harsh glare of the flashlights, Nate looked even worse than the few glimpses in the lab had let me assess. I blindly groped for a water bottle from my pack, wetting one of my spare shirts so I could wipe off some of the blood to get a better look at where it was still coming from, easily taking off a few layers of skin that way. I winced but continued, glad when Burns held out a knife to me so I could cut through shredded gear where it made no sense to preserve it. Nate was no longer bleeding from his nose, but I figured that might just be a good sign.
“Parker, glue!” I called, not looking up from my grisly work. When no one handed me that damn tissue adhesive, I looked up, not caring to cut down on the wave of annoyance that rose within me. The medic remained huddled in the back part of the room, glowering at everyone and me in particular, not moving a muscle. I narrowed my eyes at him, my mouth opening to send a scathing tirade his way, but Cole snapped first, stalking over to Parker, towering over him. No words were exchanged but they weren’t necessary; Cole returned with two first-aid kits and a satchel that he dropped onto the floor next to me, already opening them to get me what I needed.
“You know that shit’s only a temporary fix?”
I nodded, taking the first syringe he handed me, tearing the safety cap off with my teeth. “One of the first things I did after the shit hit the fan was to dig what was left of the glue, plus pus and necrotic flesh in abundance, out of his chest. Martinez had to patch him up after a rebar speared him through the chest.” The memory made me crack a smile. “That rebar should have gone through me, probably. Didn’t because he pushed me away. You could say this is kind of our thing.”
The worst-looking wounds were all superficial—and would leave some scars that could rival those on my hip and leg—but some were still bleeding enough to make me curse as I tried to plug them. One in the crook of his neck, two on his torso, and one so close to the femoral artery on his right leg that I could confirm that he had, in fact, not been going commando, and the goods looked properly tucked away still. That done, I allowed myself a simple sigh of relief as I rocked back on my heels—but that didn’t mean much. In a day or two, I’d have to cut the glue out and hope I could sew him back together. Maybe after that things would look up. They had to, really. There was no alternative.
I checked on his breathing next, this time in earnest. There was some wet rattling going on that I really didn’t like but he was still breathing, regularly if slowly. I could only passingly check his burns and we didn’t have anything with us for that so I slapped on some gauze and moved on. I peeled his lids back next, trying to check his eyes, not sure what to expect. They weren’t looking like cooked egg whites so that was good, but I knew that so much UV light would have wreaked havoc with them as well. Next came the part I couldn’t do on my own but Burns and Cole were ready to lend a hand—happy align-broken-bones and pop-joints-back-in-place time! I didn’t doubt that we’d have to do more of that later, once he was conscious enough to let us know what didn’t move as it should.
“Are you done yet?” Hamilton asked as soon as I took a moment to wipe my bloody, grimy hands on the even more bloody, grimy rag formerly known as my shirt. “We need to get going.”
Glaring up at him I found that even tired enough to keel over, I was still angry enough to be ready for a fight.
“What’s ten more minutes to you? Getting bored already? It’s dark outside, anyway, so what’s the difference?” Dark, in a city that had given us barely a glimpse at its undead population in daylight, which had been enough already to give me nightmares for years.
“Me? I could watch you play dilettante patch-up for hours. But those undead fuckers on the other side of the door have gotten mighty quiet. Wanna bet they’re smart enough to use one of their exits to the surface so they can wait for us when we finally make it up through the elevator shaft? Just a thought.”
A very sobering one, and one I hadn’t considered. Rather than kick myself for that, I inclined my head, if grudgingly. “That’s all I can do for him right now. Do we have something we can make a stretcher out of, once we’re past the shaft?” I figured someone would likely have to pull Nate up the old-fashioned way.
“Check on your other patient while we get everything ready,” Hamilton told me.
I was ready to grouse at his dismissal, but then realized that he was talking about Gita. The guilt that I hadn’t yet felt as we’d stumbled over Tanner’s remains came crashing over me full force now as I turned to where she was hunched over in a corner, looking incredibly small and all alone in the world.
Crouching down next to her, I checked her temperature first. At least she was still responsive and hadn’t seemed to get much worse in the meantime.
“You didn’t find him, did you?” Her voice was weak, barely more than a croak.
I debated with myself what to tell her. I would have wanted to know the truth—but I’d gotten a second chance today that she’d never have. Adding to her obvious grief didn�
�t seem smart, so I shook my head, hoping that none of the other idiots would later contradict me.
“Nope. I’d love to tell you there’s still a chance—”
“I know that there isn’t,” she offered, closing her eyes for a second—and then visibly pulling herself together. “I hope he took a lot of them with him before they got him. He always said he wouldn’t want to die, toothless and senile, in a bed somewhere. Just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
“It’s always too soon.”
She let me pull her to her feet, and I went over her gear and weapons check with her. She still had two spare magazines, which was more than she’d probably be able to use. The nasty voice at the back of my head helpfully supplied that those were two spare magazines I could grab should push come to shove. I tried to ignore that knowledge as best as I could as I got myself ready before checking on Nate again. Burns was done wrapping him in his spare jacket, and the torn leftovers of the old one did a good job patching up the holes in his pants. I’d make sure to get him all bundled up once we were in the boats.
If we made it back to the boats.
That had felt like a small detail when we’d descended into the underground complex, not like the insurmountable feat it had turned into now.
Nobody was leaving here unscathed. Munez was actually the one with the less cuts, bruises, and broken bones, and considering that he was likely infected, that was saying a lot. I wasn’t the only one who had trouble now ascending the elevator shaft. If not for the small electric gimmicks that helped, Richards with his broken hand—and utter loss of five of his fingers because of that—would never have been able to get out of there. Getting down had been an affair of minutes; getting everyone and what was left of the gear back out took over an hour and was far from stealthy. Somehow we managed, because what was the alternative? Exactly.
It was as we sneaked up the stairwell to the ground level that I felt the first effects of the booster finally wearing off. I hadn’t kept track of it anymore after we’d ventured into the hot lab, but the sudden sensation of vertigo, followed by a spell of weakness that almost brought me to my knees, was an unwelcome reminder that I was running on borrowed resources. It passed quickly enough, but it was a warning I absolutely could have done without.
The foyer of the building was still empty, but predators—bipedal and more—had taken the last hours as an invitation to come after the corpses our cleanup effort had left. There was gore, streaks of fluids, and parts of bodies everywhere, a grisly welcome mat if there’d ever been one. But that wasn’t the only nasty surprise waiting for me.
Because of my physical limitations—and this time not even those due to Raynor’s precision work—I couldn’t be used for hauling gear or the wounded, so vanguard duty it was. Since we had Nate and Gita to carry, and Richards couldn’t shoot, it was down to Munez and me to sneak outside and find a way for all of us back across the entire length of the plaza and down to where the boats—hopefully—were still waiting for us. I hated the idea of having to leave Nate’s side, but I hated the idea of Hamilton shooting me in the face out of principle even more, so out into the biting cold and darkness I went.
The last traces of light in the sky were long gone, leaving the city in utter darkness. The weather had turned for the better, the storm moving on while we’d been busy underground; only light gusts of wind were still blowing, chasing the last tendrils of fog away. It was a clear, starry night, and under different circumstances I would have loved to enjoy the view. At least there was enough light left for my eyes to work well, but that also meant the shamblers would see us, too.
I stepped out through what used to be one of the huge windows next to the grand portal, pressing myself against the cold slab of stone next to it. Munez mirrored my move on the other side, looking around nervously. My side was the one farther away from the river, toward the cube-arch thing towering above the plaza. From here, I could see the open spaces leading up to it well—and the easily over a thousand strong mob of shamblers that slowly trundled from one side to the other. There was no sense or direction to their motions so it wasn’t simply a streak passing through. Why they didn’t seek shelter, I couldn’t say, but I didn’t like how those closest to us stopped more frequently to sniff the air. I knew I was reeking of disinfectant, but to their fine-tuned senses I probably also smelled of blood—Nate’s, that of the freaks I’d killed or fended off, and maybe some of my own as well. Or maybe it was something else that triggered them, who was to say?
Hamilton’s orders had been clear—we needed to get to the boats, but it wouldn’t do us any good if the shamblers came after us the moment we stepped outside. From their sheer number it was obvious that creating a diversion wasn’t something that would work, so avoidance was the name of the game. At least the bite of the cold chased away the blanket of exhaustion that kept spreading through my thoughts.
I signaled Munez that I was going to check to the right—toward the horde. Everything inside of me screamed to go the other way, but if there was a chance that we could sneak out through the back, someone needed to check on what we might be running from if the plan went to hell. I used slow, deliberate motions to inch my way along the front of the buildings, hating how heads all over turned in my direction, eyes watching me—yet none had that focus and intelligence in them that the freaks had shown. That didn’t change a thing about their immense numbers, and after watching them for a good five minutes I decided that this wasn’t the way out.
Munez had returned from his brief check the other way, and when he gave me a quick nod of confirmation that the straight route down the plaza was still the better option, we started scouting that way. “Clear” was relative as even getting to the other end of the building took us several minutes and seven downed shamblers. The cold left them sluggish and easier to kill, but all that was relative.
While Munez secured the gap between this building and the next, I sneaked back inside to give the others the all-clear. I didn’t get more than a glimpse at Nate before I had to go back out. Wu and Murdock would be carrying the makeshift stretcher, and Burns had Gita partly draped over one shoulder. I forced a lid on my worry and stepped out to make sure the way ahead was clear.
Our cleanup was already drawing attention, the first enterprising shamblers falling on their now permanently dead brethren. The wet sounds they produced made me sick—but they also did a good job masking the sounds my movements inadvertently produced. More and more crept closer to investigate, and I realized that they’d likely been drawn by the dead bodies we’d left on our way in. It wasn’t that hard to keep adding to that, so that was the strategy I proposed in hushed tones over the com. The rescue effort ceased for a while, a small group of guards remaining with the wounded while the rest swarmed out to bash in heads and sever spines. It was a grueling, painstakingly stop-and-go effort, and more than once it was luck that my too-quick motions in downing a zombie didn’t get the entire mob to come after me. Before long, I was sweating from both tension and exertion, my muscles twitching all over. I felt myself sliding ever so slowly toward that crash that I knew was coming, but I couldn’t let myself succumb to that yet.
It was close to midnight by the time we’d created two grisly, bloody lines along the sides of the plaza, and none of the undead bystanders paid us any heed anymore. My leg was killing me, and I doubted I would have managed to run even if my life had depended on it. Thankfully, it depended on being slow and stealthy, instead. We finally reached that ramp by the park deck, and I allowed myself a last, lingering look across the bridge at central Paris. Even though it was twice as deadly at night, it looked so fucking peaceful in its grand old splendor.
I couldn’t wait to be out of here and never see any of it ever again.
The squatters were still inside the park deck, and several of them had come out to investigate. Cole made as if to come after them but I signaled him to back down and instead wait until they had passed and joined those repurposing the shamblers we’
d done away with. One group passed, giving us a few minutes respite. That was enough to get Hamilton, Richards, Burns and his burden, and Munez past them to clear the lower parts of the ramp. Up here, we had to wait another fifteen minutes to let the next group of four through, plus the makeshift stretcher. I forced myself not to follow their progress but watch the undead instead, who were still watching us. Then we caught another break and the last of us took their chance, crossing onto the ramp. Just before ducking behind the balustrade, I caught a last look deeper into the vast, open space, and that’s when I saw them—an entire huddle of a good thirty of the emaciated, smart ones. Only half of them were naked, their skins darkened with what must have been fresh blood. But rather than come after us, they kept watching as well—waiting for us to finally vacate their territory. I was more than ready to oblige them.
I was one of the last to make it off the ramp and across the road between the car wrecks, all still swarming with shamblers but with enough cover to avoid them if we just took enough time to let them walk past. Everyone was already in the boats—that were still where we’d left them—and I was grateful for Cole helping me down. I was again riding with Ines although Noah had switched over to the boat that Hamilton had commandeered as his. It was hard not to notice that none of the possibly infected was in that boat—Parker and Russell were with Burns and Gita in the one piloted by Raphael, and Munez climbed in behind where I sat down in the middle of the cargo space, pulling Nate onto my lap—after drawing my Beretta. I wasn’t stupid enough to expect to survive should Nate die and convert, but I sure as hell was keeping him from killing anyone else.
Once everyone was stowed away, we cast off, the engines still silent. That made steering problematic, but since it kept us from drawing attention—such as from the bridge jumpers—it was the best way to go. It only took a few minutes for the last skyscraper to fall out of sight as the gently rocking boats were swept away by the black waters of the Seine.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 99