“What was he like?” James sounded genuinely curious.
“Not like a traitor if that’s what you’re wondering. He seemed like a nice guy. In fact, I would use the term loyal to describe him, though he wasn’t loyal to Keystone. He had a little brother who he seemed to adore, and I heard through the grapevine that his brother was the whole reason he worked for Keystone.”
“Danny Cole,” James filled in the little brother’s name. “He was with Mathias when we brought him in.”
“Right, you were part of the team that tracked him down.”
“Yup. So what do you think about the fact that he killed some of our guys?”
“Confused,” Nicky told him honestly. Something about the way James spoke made Nicky think she could trust him with these things. “I met LeBlanc a few times as well, and he and Mathias seemed like really good friends. I can’t see Cole killing LeBlanc for anything.”
James paused a moment before speaking again. “We don’t know that he did.”
Nicky stopped mopping and looked at James. “What do you mean?”
“LeBlanc took off with Cole.” James stopped mopping as well so that they could look each other in the eyes. “My team was supposed to bring him in as well. When we grabbed Cole, he had LeBlanc’s gear with him, but LeBlanc was nowhere in sight. We assume something happened to him. The higher ups came up with the story that Mathias killed East and LeBlanc during his first escape from the school.”
“Did East go with him as well?”
“No,” James shook his head and started mopping again. “The first team that tried to take out Cole and LeBlanc managed to kill her.”
“Why was she killed? Why did Cole get labelled a traitor in the first place?”
James shrugged. “I don’t know that part. From what I’ve overheard, he just wanted to leave. He just wanted to go be with his little brother. Keystone didn’t want him to go, as it might give others ideas to do the same. LeBlanc wanted to leave too; he had planned to go with Cole. Supposedly, East wanted out as well, although she wasn’t as boisterous about it.”
Nicky turned away from James, scrubbing a stubborn stain on the floor. All they wanted to do was leave and they were killed for it? Or at least, Keystone tried to kill them, and succeeded with East. If Nicky had had family elsewhere whom she wanted to be with, would they have killed her too?
“Where did you hear this from?” Nicky finally spoke again.
“From Chant.”
Nicky stopped scrubbing and turned to face James again, but his back was to her as he kept mopping. Chant was a traitor. She had gone on the radio and spilled as many beans as she could. She told everyone who would listen that Marble Keystone had released the virus, and that they had released it on purpose. That was troublesome.
Nicky thought that something drastic needed to be done to fix the world’s many problems, but she didn’t condone the killing of so many innocent people. She didn’t think the virus should have been released, however it was too late to change that. When Chant told people what had happened, it only caused an unnecessary panic. Several Keystone employees had been injured and even killed by angry mobs. In the camps they had set up, unrest was just under the surface, and they were always on the alert for an uprising.
Chant had told the people to go north. This was stupid. Many of those people were going to freeze to death up there once winter came. Sure, zombies froze solid when it got cold, they had no body heat, but people could freeze too. And unlike the zombies, people didn’t just thaw out and resume what they were doing when spring came. Not to mention they needed to eat, and could get sick if they ate the wrong things.
Many survivors didn’t trust the Keystone mercenaries now, which made it very difficult to get them to come with them. A lot of these people weren’t going to survive the winter without them. Some wouldn’t even last that long. Coming with Keystone was the best option for them. A few survivors really didn’t want to come, and some of the mercenaries, having to deal with their crap all day when they were trying to help, overreacted. Survivors were occasionally beaten into submission or sometimes even shot. One team had trouble with a kid who took off. When the kid was running, he had gotten the mercenary who was chasing him killed. That kid wasn’t treated well at all when the team managed to find him again. Now that Nicky thought about it, the kid was the one who had ended up helping Cole: he threw one of the firebombs. Cole must have gotten him out somehow, and after the way he had been treated, it was no wonder he helped bomb the place.
“Nicky?” James had noticed she hadn’t moved since Chant’s name was mentioned.
“When did Chant tell you these things?” she decided to ask.
“Just before she went on air,” James told her. “After she locked herself in the broadcast room, she called me. She told me what happened with Cole and East and what she was going to do. I told her not to do it, it would only cause more problems, but she didn’t listen.”
“Why would she call you?”
“We used to know each other. For nearly a year, we worked together in the England branch, until she was moved to Leighton and I was sent to California. When we were all shipped to Leighton, just before this happened, we ran into each other and got to talking.”
“What did you talk about?”
“How well can I trust you, Nicky?” James and Nicky were now standing face to face again. She looked into his pale brown eyes, he into her dark brown ones.
“I don’t know,” Nicky finally said in honesty. She sensed she was on the edge of a very deep rabbit hole and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to tumble down it.
“I admire your honesty,” James smiled. “If you ever feel I can trust you, completely and thoroughly, come find me.”
He turned away and went back to mopping. Nicky felt the rabbit hole recede a little. She was no longer on the edge of it, but now she was aware of its presence and wouldn’t be able to forget about it. She knew that eventually she was going to tell James that he could trust her, but whether that would be the truth or a lie she didn’t know.
Nicky went back to scrubbing stains.
***
It was a few hours later, as the sun was touching the bottom of the sky, that the convoy from the school showed up. Nicky had once again volunteered her time to be part of the receiving crew.
Standing outside the prison building, inside the walls and fences, was always spooky. You could hear the groans, shrieks, moans, growls, and howls of the zombies that were just outside the walls. The number of them out there grew every day, but the massive stone walls protected them. A few times a day, the wall crew walked around the outer wall with simple instruments that were made out of long pieces of wood or pipe with long nails duct taped parallel to the ends of them. As they walked the outer wall, the zombies would look up at them, and the crew would drive the nails in through their eyes. It still took quite a bit of force, and the nail didn’t always hit the part of the brain it needed to, but they were slowly taking them out. The biggest concern was the body pile getting too high, allowing the zombies to climb up it to get over the wall. So, everyday, one of the mercenaries on the defence team drove out there in an armoured bulldozer and shoved the bodies away from the wall. He was out there right now. She could just hear the engine rumbling along among the heaviest concentration of zombie noises. Nicky did not envy that job, not even a little bit.
“They’re coming!” a voice shouted from one of the short guard towers that sat next to the doors in the walls. Nicky looked up to see the man who had shouted waving his arms, making sure everybody knew.
In a corner toward the rear of the prison building, snipers got ready in the tall tower. In the two short towers flanking the doors, men were double-checking their weapons. Where the trucks would off-load, men stood at the ready, prepared to get everyone out as quickly and easily as possible. Another, smaller group of men, were ready to jump into the driver’s seats of the trucks once they were emptied and drive them to their parking zone.
Even the drivers of the trucks coming in had to go through processing. Nicky stood near the entrance of the building. If a zombie got in and made a beeline for the door, she was the last line of defence outside. In addition, the men grabbing the people out of the trucks weren’t going to be paying much attention to their condition. Nicky had to look at their faces, and if any looked as if they might be sick and could change in the next few minutes, she was to pull them out of the group so that they could be immediately checked outside.
A much louder rumbling of trucks came within hearing range. They got closer and closer to the prison, stirring the dead into a frenzy. Without having to see, Nicky knew the zombies were already swarming the vehicles. With sixty-eight people coming in, there would be either six comfortably packed trucks, or five shoulder-to-shoulder packed trucks. Maybe even four jammed trucks, if they were desperate. This was, so far, the largest group they had received from outside.
“Ready!” a voice screamed, barely heard over the dim.
Nicky shifted her weight from foot to foot. She listened as the outer set of doors creaked and swung open, and the first truck rumbled forward. There were two stone walls surrounding the prison, and therefore, two doors the trucks had to pass through. Once the first truck passed the first set of doors, the outer doors swung closed again. The men in the towers to either side stuck their guns out of the tower windows and opened fire. When they let the trucks in between the doors, they inevitably let in zombies as well. The men were killing those zombies that had gotten in. The rifles were strong enough to penetrate skulls, but not the metal casings of the trucks. If a car of survivors ever showed up, however, they would need to devise a new plan.
The gunfire stopped, and the inner doors creaked open. The truck rumbled in through the opening. Its normally white shell was completely red with blood, and bodies hung off the roof. Its big tires rolled easily over the bodies in front of it, crushing skulls and rib cages beneath them. The moment it was through, the doors began to close to prepare for the next truck.
The driver got out first and exchanged a few quick words with the receiving team. The team then went to the back to let out the passengers. A few then went to the front to let more people out of there. Nicky was surprised to see civilians getting out of the front section; normally they were restricted to the back. Maybe they did have only four vehicles.
As the people came toward her, she snapped out of her thoughts and got serious. She looked into the face of everyone going by, scrutinizing them. They all looked the same: exhausted, weary, lost, and scared. They looked like the faces of war refugees. In a way, they were. None of them looked like scientists. Despite what Crichton had said, the scientists hadn’t come in first.
No one from that first truck looked suspicious.
The second truck off-loaded as easily as the first. As the refugees shuffled past Nicky, she spotted one. She pulled a woman out of the group, who squawked. Her eyes became large and terrified, but her skin was pale and slick with sweat.
“She just has the flu!” A man stepped out of the group toward Nicky. Nicky responded by pointing her gun at him.
“Go with the group, sir!” she barked. “Owen!”
Dr. Owen had been selected to wait outside with Nicky. He was giving people a cursory glance for bad injuries. So far, there hadn’t been any.
Owen ran over to her, pulling a blood draw kit out of his bag. When the woman saw the doctor come over, she relaxed. That alone suggested she wasn’t infected, because she knew she would pass the test. Nicky let her go, but kept her gun pointed at the man. He wasn’t going with the group, but he wasn’t coming closer either. He was just waiting.
The moment the woman’s blood entered Owen’s vial, he gave her the all clear. The woman hurried over to the man, and they walked the rest of the way to the building together.
“How did you know she was clear the moment you saw her blood?” Nicky asked Owen without looking at him. “Don’t you guys normally use a microscope?”
“If you’re so infected that you’re sweating like that, your blood will come out extra thick,” Owen told her.
Nicky nodded as the third truck arrived. This truck didn’t empty as smoothly; it seemed to be the truck carrying the injured. However, it too was packed with more people than it should have been. Here was where Owen had to get to work. As the injured came toward the building, some being carried by those who had only minor injures, others being moved by members of the receiving team, Owen evaluated them and gave them a coloured card. Different colours were different priorities. Many of them looked like they could be infected as well, and he had to do a lot of quick blood draws. So many in fact, that Owen needed Nicky to do a few as well. None of them tested positive. At least not then.
The fourth truck came through, which, they were told by one of the last passengers, also carried injured. The driver and everyone else sitting in the front section of the truck, flew out of it as soon as they stopped.
“Don’t open the doors!” the driver screamed. “Don’t open the doors!”
The receiving team ordered the small group toward Nicky and Owen while they approached the back with guns raised. The small group hurried by, none of them looking ill or badly injured, meaning that Nicky and Owen were free to watch the receiving team. In the backs of all the trucks were cameras, which allowed those who were sitting in the front sections of the trucks to see what was going on in the back. The way the small group from the front was acting, nothing good was happening.
The team stood back from the rear doors, guns raised. One poor mercenary drew the short straw and had to approach the doors. He opened them quickly and then sprang sideways like a startled rabbit. As soon as the doors swung open, a zombie charged out. The receiving team opened fire, spraying the entire inside of the truck with bullets. Nothing inside could survive that, not even the zombies. Only three zombies had made it out of the back before being gunned down, and the receiving team donned gloves to toss them back inside. They shut the doors, and the truck was driven to a different section of the compound. There might be good supplies that just needed their containers changed, and the bodies would be unloaded and tossed over the wall. Another job that Nicky would never volunteer for. It seemed that they weren’t going to be as over-populated as they had feared.
When the last truck rumbled through, it didn’t stop where it was supposed to. It roared by, heading straight for the garages. The receiving team shouted curses and began running after it. Nicky and Owen joined them in chasing down the vehicle. The big truck stopped just in front of the closed garage doors, and the driver got out, holding his arms in the air. Many men were shouting at him, reprimanding him for his idiocy. Nicky recognized the man; his name was Edelstein, and he had worked in the White Box. She didn’t know him well, and had only seen him around a few times when she had been called to the White Box, but she knew that he was strict about following the rules, and that the scientists liked him. She couldn’t get close enough to hear what Edelstein was saying to the receiving team, but she realized that he was transporting the scientists from the school, and only the scientists. That explained why the other trucks had been so jammed, because the scientists got their own.
Edelstein walked around to the back and opened the truck himself. Maybe only five men and women in white lab coats got out. Between them, they carried a slim and solid crate, just large enough to hold a person. It was heavily locked, and it was moving. Someone, or something, was inside.
Nicky looked over at Owen, and they locked eyes. He had seen it too. The scientists were bringing a functioning zombie into the garage. Crichton was going to have some explaining to do. Nicky couldn’t believe he would allow this.
After the rest of the equipment was loaded into the garage, the receiving team, including Owen, dispersed. Nicky hung around a moment longer and spotted James just outside the garage doors. He wasn’t on the receiving team, so he must have been waiting in the garage and gotten booted out when the scientists showed up.
Nicky stormed her way over to him.
“James,” she got his attention. He turned to her with a neutral expression. “You can trust me. Tell me everything.”
8:
Misha Jovovich – Days 7-8
Misha Jovovich watched as the massive hulk of the polar bear charged at Riley. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. His father had worked as a logger back in Russia and had taken Misha hunting a few times. In addition to learning about other animals, he had been taught all about polar bears and about how dangerous they were. The skinny Russian’s instincts caused him to reach down next to him and grab Rifle’s harness. The dog had followed him to the shore, and he didn’t want him rushing out at the bear, trying to protect Riley. That would just result in both Riley being killed, as well as the dog.
When the polar bear was within a few strides of reaching Riley, a loud crack ripped through the air. The small black eye of the polar bear exploded outward in a red spray. The bear heaved forward one last time, carried by its momentum, and collapsed. It slammed into Riley, and she was knocked backward, thankfully without the bear on top of her.
Misha, shocked, let go of Rifle who ran full force at the dead bear, barking, growling, and trying to be intimidating. Mathias ran too, and Josh did his best to keep up on his crutches, the sandy shore adding extra difficulty. Misha turned to face the stairs that led up to the cabin. On the fourth step from the bottom, Alec sat in his wheelchair at an odd angle, with the front wheels higher than the larger, back wheels. Tobias and Abby were behind him, supporting him so that he didn’t roll down. In Alec’s hands was his sniper rifle, the barrel still smoking silently. He lowered it when he was sure the bear was dead.
“You guys okay? Didn’t hurt your ears or anything?” Alec asked of Tobias and Abby. They both nodded, although Tobias was rubbing his right ear.
Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) Page 14