“Find anything on the Vance girl?” he asked.
Unlike Corning, Dawson was not high enough on the chain of command to talk back at all. He turned and said, “Yes, sir. I just forwarded all the information to General Dr. Thompson.”
He pointed at the screen. Barrington saw a young girl smiling while holding a gun. The picture was tagged Killer Kate. It had over a hundred likes.
“You have a location?”
“Yes. It was in my report to General Dr. Thompson.”
“Thank you. I’ll read the report,” he said even though he knew he would never be reading the report. Especially after Corning told Thompson he was in the tech command center snooping around. He did not need the location anyway; he just needed to know if Thompson had it.
Dawson was still looking at him, so Barrington said, “Good work.”
“Thank you, sir,” Dawson said before going back to watching his screen.
Barrington hustled back to his quarters to get the message to Vance. As he was going, he thought of someone else to contact. Someone who could be of service to his cause of helping Eric Vance and family out of the QZ.
Chapter 19
Coast Highway Bridge - Oceanside, CA
Bo had just killed the cop who’d saved his life only a few minutes ago, putting a fireman’s axe through the top of his head when the floodlights hit him.
Except for the ones closest, the horde of the infected stopped their steady approach as the sounds of gunfire and big engines distracted them.
What looked like a locomotive on wheels began plowing through the infected as men fired machine guns mounted on turrets into the infected on both sides of the bridge. Bo did not have time to watch the armored vehicle rain death on the amblers as he had to bash in a skull with the nightstick with his left hand while he swung the axe at another one with his right.
A bullet took out the next nearest one as the large vehicle pulled up next to Gavin and Bo standing in the middle of the bridge. A door opened in the back and a man covered head to toe in armor told them to get in.
Bo and Gavin hustled aboard. The doors shut, and with the machine gunner clearing the way, they were soon headed back to the south side of the bridge.
“Thank you,” Bo said to the soldier who waved them in.
The man did not answer. With the helmet on, it was impossible to read what he was thinking.
Another soldier told them to “sit down” and pointed to a couple of seats. Gavin and Bo sat down and strapped themselves in.
They both thanked this soldier as well and got the same response.
As the vehicle rumbled through the streets, Gavin tugged on Bo’s sleeve and motioned for him to bring an ear close so he could whisper without the soldiers hearing.
“They aren’t very friendly,” he said.
“They did save us,” Bo whispered back.
“Why aren’t they happy about it?”
Bo had no answer.
The vehicle came to a stop, and the door opened. Outside, Bo could see another vehicle like this one, without the plow on the front. A door opened on its side and a tall thin man in a lab coat exited the vehicle along with a few more soldiers.
The man in the lab coat looked to the man who had waved Bo and Gavin inside the vehicle and said, “So, Captain Novak, you are not going to go Major Cook on me are you?”
Captain Novak did not reply.
“Don’t go soft on me.”
Captain Novak stayed silent.
The man in the lab coat came aboard the vehicle and stepped in front of Gavin and Bo.
“I’m Dr. Talbot,” he told them.
“I’m Gavin,” the kid said, sticking out his hand for Talbot to shake.
“Bo.”
Talbot finished shaking Gavin’s hand and looked at Bo. His focus went to the bandaged arm.
“Were you bit?”
“No,” Bo lied. As glad as he was to be rescued, he agreed with Gavin that something was off about these men. He was thinking if he had not turned by now he wasn’t going to, so he was not a danger to anyone. Even if he turned, they seemed ready to handle it. He decided the less these guys knew about his wound the better.
“Are you sure?” Dr. Talbot asked.
“I think I would know,” Bo said.
Talbot nodded, and Bo had a feeling the doctor did not believe him.
“What happened?” Dr. Talbot asked.
“Broken glass climbing out a window,” Bo said after a pause he knew was too long.
Talbot looked at Gavin. “Is this what happened?”
Bo figured he was screwed. Gavin heard him tell Dinkins he was bit. The kid had no reason to lie for him.
“Yes. He cut himself on some glass,” Gavin said.
Bo wanted to thank the kid, but now would not be a good time.
“Well, I am a doctor, so why don’t you both come into my transport and I will give you a thorough exam.”
Both Bo and Gavin did not like the idea but could think of no reason to say no. They were undoing their seat belts when another soldier came aboard the transport.
“We have a message from command,” he said to Dr. Talbot.
“They can wait,” Dr. Talbot said. “Our new guest has a wound I think needs tending to.”
Bo was about to say he was fine, but the soldier spoke before he could, saying, “They have a location for Vance.”
“Why didn’t you say so,” Dr. Talbot said to the soldier. He turned back to Bo. “I’m afraid you are going to have to wait a bit for your exam.”
“No problem,” Bo told Dr. Talbot’s backside as the doctor and Captain Novak went back to his vehicle. The doors closed, and they were moving again shortly after.
Chapter 20
The TMRT Research Convoy - Oceanside, CA
Once aboard Dr. Talbot’s transport, Captain Novak took off his helmet and stood in front of Dr. Talbot, who had taken a seat.
“You have something to say now?” Dr. Talbot asked the captain.
“I thought I would answer your question from before.”
“Please do.”
“You’ll be glad to hear I am not going to go all ‘Major Cook’ on you. I believe in the importance of this mission.”
“Yet you insisted we break protocol and engage in a rescue mission. You do know they will not be allowed out of quarantine, don’t you?”
“The boy is not infected.”
“So what? What is the use of a quarantine if we make exceptions?”
Novak had no answer. Instead he said, “You know why I insisted on the rescue?”
“I honestly don’t.”
“I may not go ‘Major Cook’ on you, but I may be in the minority. Watching a kid get overwhelmed by the horde might have been the breaking point. I believed the best way to keep morale up was to do the rescue.”
“Frankly, morale is not a concern of mine.”
“It should be. The mission is in jeopardy.”
“How so?”
“The mission may not survive a mutiny. If you believe in what you are doing as much as you claim, it would be a shame to fail now when all we have to do to succeed is leave the QZ.”
“We will be on our way soon enough. Just one more stop.”
“A stop I strongly recommend we skip. My people have always been uneasy with your methods—seeing them applied to one of their own might be a bridge too far. Like I said before, the general consensus is in favor of Major Cook.”
“He’s a traitor.”
“A traitor many of my people happen to agree with. Even if they don’t, none of them are anxious to get into a fire fight with their former commander.”
“It doesn’t have to go that way.”
“How could it not? You locked Vance’s daughter in here with a vampire rotter. He won’t be in the mood to surrender.”
“Are you suggesting we leave Vance in the QZ?”
“That is precisely what I am suggesting. You may have another infected with immunity aboard anywa
y. That kid’s broken glass story was bullshit.”
“I suspect it was. I have to know, though, before I process him. As you can see, the man you want to let go played a part in us losing the vampire rotter we worked hard to catch. We have no way to test the man unless we capture another.”
“I think I could make him talk. Even if he isn’t, how many samples do you need?”
“That is impossible to say. I would prefer to have too much than not enough.”
“If you continue to pursue Vance, you may have none at all.”
“I’ll take your suggestions under advisement. I will give it some thought.”
“You need to think fast. We’re almost there.”
Chapter 21
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
Katelin snapped awake with visions of the kid sitting in the liquor store watching her shoot down his father. In the dream she was putting the iron sights of her pistols on the mother and the kid. Sighting up the gun in her left on Mom and the gun in her right on her son. They both stood still so she could aim at them.
She pulled the triggers together. Instead of seeing the heads of the last of a family explode, she awoke to the ceiling of Corrigan’s bunker. Ana was still asleep in the room. The soldier Alison had been there earlier, but she had gone.
She reached for her phone and checked the time. Like before she was only able to get about two hours’ sleep before images of the murder she committed started dancing in her brain. She considered going online and checking to see if she could find any more information on her friends.
No one was returning her messages. It was a real possibility they were all either dead or infected. She turned her phone off and put it away. She did not need any more bad news. If she did not look at her phone, she could pretend everyone might be alive and well for a little bit longer.
She quietly got out of bed and worked her way out of the room.
The statuesque soldier was watching the television, keeping tabs on the activities around the house. Katelin stood still in the dark watching along with the female TMRT soldier. The horde, which had descended on them, had not tired of wandering the area outside Corrigan’s bunker. Kate figured they would stay until something else drew them away. They did not seem to get bored.
The idea they wouldn’t leave them alone unless they found new victims did not sit well with Katelin. After the day they’d had, she felt they could defend themselves. The new target of the horde might not be as capable.
She moved quietly into the kitchen. She could have eaten something, but it seemed wrong when food was limited to eat without the others. She remembered how when they raided the kitchen before one pantry was empty.
This struck Katelin as odd. She figured survivalist types would keep the shelves stocked. She opened this one and took another look.
Still empty. Maybe he was getting ready to make a run to restock this one when everything went crazy. Unlike his other pantry, this one was not very deep. Again this was curious. The place was dug out of a hillside. There was no reason not to make the pantry a decent size.
When she reached in and gave one of the shelves a tug, she had no expectations anything would happen. When the entire thing came forward, she almost fell over. The shelves were a door to another room.
It made sense. Guys who live in bunkers dug into the hillside surrounded by homemade land mines are just the kind of people to build hidden rooms into their property. She stepped inside and found a light switch.
It was more than just one room. Corrigan had built a hallway at least twenty feet long. There was a door all the way at the end and a pair of doors on each side.
Katelin went to the door at the end and tried it first. It was locked. She figured the other two would be as well, but the one on the right opened as she turned the knob.
She found a light switch and found herself standing in a child’s bedroom. The walls were covered with posters for kids shows, mostly of the preschool variety. All shows Katelin remembered watching, which gave the room a retro feel. She figured there had to be new kids shows out there in the eight years or so since she watched them.
The bed was neatly made with a Batman comforter covering it and a trio of stuffed bears sitting on the end. Katelin felt they were staring at her, judging her with their plastic eyes. She felt like an intruder. She also wondered where the kid was.
At the foot of the bed was a toy box, stuffed with the kind of toys boys loved. Dinosaurs and superhero action figures along with the miniature cars filled the box. Not a single toy was on the floor, which to Katelin was the strangest thing of all. It was clearly a boys room, but in her limited experience as a babysitter it was far too neat and orderly to be a real boys room.
Even before she began to have all kinds of awful thoughts about what might go on in this room, the place was giving her the creeps. She closed the door behind her and moved on to check the room across the hall.
She was expecting it to be another kids room, maybe a girls room this time with a Disney Princess comforter in place of Batman. This room was smaller, about half the size. A moderate-sized walk-in closet at best. Inside, neatly displayed on the wall, were a collection of guns of all shapes and sizes. Stacked on the floor were wooden crates. Kate assumed the words written on them saying ammunition or grenades was an accurate description of what was inside. One wall was rifles, another handguns, and the third wall was blades. Not medieval-looking swords or hatchets like the members of the South West Apocalypse Response Crew favored, but nasty-looking military combat knives. Though in the middle was a pair of katanas in black wooden sheaths. Unlike the blades SWARC brought to the QZ, Katelin guessed these were not bought at the mall.
Strangely she felt much better in this room surrounded by instruments of death than she had among the posters, toys, and stuffed animals in the other room.
In the corner below the blades was what looked kind of like a pair of scuba tanks. but the line coming out of these went into a long metal tube with a pair of handles. The nearest handle had a trigger on it. Given the rest of the objects inside, Katelin figured this was a flamethrower.
She was tempted to try it on, but it looked heavy and she decided no good could come of it. The last thing she wanted to do was burn the place down. She turned her attention to the wall filled with small arms.
It was an impressive display. Katelin felt like Goldilocks as she took the handgun with the words Desert Eagle off the wall and found it was too heavy, and when looking at a .22 sized for easy concealment found it not enough gun for what they were dealing with. There was no reason to hide a gun from the infected.
She ignored the Glocks. They were not any different than the two she had been carrying all day. She put the .22 back on the wall and plucked a TEC-9 off its display. It was heavier than her Glocks but still felt pretty good in her hand.
Corrigan had arranged his crates so the ammunition was stored below the weapon. Kate found an extended magazine stuffed to capacity with nine-millimeter slugs and slapped in the bottom of the handle. The weapon was heavier but still felt good in her hand.
She found a twin to match and loaded it too. Holding the two guns, she figured she could mow down some infected with these. She could take out a liquor store owner who decided to put a gun on her temple and try to rob her too.
She held the guns, thinking about taking a selfie when she decided to see what was behind the next door. She put down what she was already thinking of as her new guns and went to the door.
This one was locked. She saw it was dead bolted from her side. She turned the bolt and was reaching for the handle when she heard footsteps. She turned to see Alison standing in the doorway.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Katelin told her.
Alison nodded.
“I wasn’t sneaking around as much as I was being quiet so as not to wake anyone.”
“You were very quiet. If the room had not come up on the monitor when you opened the door, I never would have known.”
> Katelin looked around toward the ceiling and saw the camera mounted in the corner. She had been so busy looking at all the weapons she had not noticed it before.
“You’ve been watching me?”
“I guess I have. I wasn’t trying to catch you at anything, I like to explore my surroundings too. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t figure out the fake room thing myself. I opened the pantry door when we were scrounging up food and never thought it might be a fake.”
“It’s not the kind of thing people usually think of when looking in a pantry.”
“True, but knowing the owner it should be. I was actually thinking for a survivalist Corrigan had a real lack of guns around. That we had not found an arsenal was kind of disturbing.”
Katelin motioned to the wall of weapons around them. “Feeling better?”
Alison walked over and grabbed the katana. She unsheathed it slowly. As she held it up to admire the blade, she said, “Yeah, I guess I am. You?”
Katelin shrugged and started to say something when the door she had unlocked flew open. A young man turned vampire rotter sprung out, knocking Katelin to the floor. It took a bite out of the arm she raised to defend herself and then sprung off her toward Alison.
Alison swung the sword in an upper-cut motion and cut the rotter in two pieces starting at his hip on the left and ending on his shoulder on the right. It landed on both sides of her as she said, “This thing is the real deal.”
She moved to Katelin, asking, “Are you okay?”
Katelin raised her arm in response.
Alison could think of nothing to say.
“You might want to cut me before I turn,” Katelin said.
Alison raised the sword but stopped and lowered it. “You haven’t shown any signs.”
“I will. Why wait?”
“Maybe you won’t.”
Katelin shook her head and moved to pick up one of the TEC-9s she set down to open the door.
“Corrigan and his girl must have locked him in there,” Katelin said. “Probably was someone they cared about. They didn’t want to kill him.”
Rot Series (Book 2): Rot II Page 7