Wheels' End: Book Four in the Wheels and Zombies series

by M. Van

  After checking in with a desk clerk and shedding a layer of clothes, we were escorted to Dr. Chen’s lab. My eyes were stuck to the linoleum as the soldier knocked on the door to announce our presence to Dr. Chen. Even after dozens of visits, my stomach still churned stepping into that lab. Any lab for that matter. Too many bad things had happened, and these damn rooms all seemed to look the same.

  An examination bed stood in the middle of the room flanked by stainless steel tables. Lining the walls stood more of those tables along with shelves and glass cases filled with all kinds of tools and equipment. A shudder ran down my body, and I fought the urge to turn on my heels and flee the room. Angie, who had gotten used to my apparent discomfort, stuck close to my side as I sneaked a peek at the figure with his back turned to us before I returned my gaze to the ground. Dr. Chen had called out an Enter as he fussed with some papers at one of the tables, but hadn’t bothered to turn around.

  “That’ll be all, Staff Sergeant,” Dr. Chen said. I looked up from the sleek floor and noticed a second man standing up from behind a desk. He was tall, with dark hair, heavyset brows, and if I had to guess looked to be in his midthirties. Ignoring us, he closed the buttons on his green shirt, and I caught a glimpse of his chiseled chest. Angie prodded me with an elbow and dipped her head in the direction where my eyes had already landed. She pulled a face that clearly expressed that she liked what she was seeing before she whispered near my ear, “Who’s that?”

  “No idea,” I whispered back as the staff sergeant sprang to attention and gave a curt nod at the doctor. Then he walked straight past us without giving any indication that we were there.

  We were both still staring at the sergeant’s back when Dr. Chen pulled our attention from the fine-looking soldier.

  “Ms. Vissers, Ms. Meadow,” he said. The doctor waved for us to join him. Only momentarily distracted by the staff sergeant’s presence, that unsettling feeling returned with a vengeance and bedded down in the pit of my stomach. Dr. Chen was a short man, and even Angie had an inch or two on him. At six feet tall, I towered over him while Chen’s eyes roamed around the height of my chest. I knew it wasn’t the man’s fault, but it seemed to me that my breasts were always the first things that caught his gaze. Despite the heavy clothing, it added to the discomfort I felt about being in his lab. Although he was approaching sixty, his hair was jet black, and there wasn’t a crease to be found on his round face.

  “Please sit,” he said. Angie and I did as we were asked and sat down on the bed in the middle of the room. Chen had the things he needed all laid out on a tray and started the steps of drawing our blood.

  “Who was that?” Angie asked as I rolled up my sleeve.

  “Who was who?” Chen said, feigning innocence. Angie gave him a hard glare. The doctor seemed undeterred by Angie, and for a second I wondered if she had finally met someone who could defy her demanding gaze as he poked a needle into my arm.

  “Doc,” she said, emphasizing her previous question. The man smirked, but then relented.

  “That was Staff Sergeant Eric Preston,” he said. “He was here for his checkup.”

  He switched out a vial, and a second glass tube started to fill with my blood.

  “Excuse me,” I piped in at his unlikely answer. This laboratory was specifically setup for any research related to mortem ostium inanimatum, otherwise known as Mortem virus, the thing that had caused the zombie plague, and the Divus serum that was supposed to counteract the former. My stomach turned as my mind raced to my conversation with Angie the day before and the idea of experiments to create super soldiers.

  “And he was being checked for what?” Angie asked. Her voice was hard and borderline threatening. I glanced up at her, and her eyes fumed in anger. Chen remained calm, ignoring the anger in Angie’s voice, and started readying another syringe. He turned to Angie and gestured for her arm as he said in a soothing voice, “We have started the first trials of inoculating men.”

  “And they just volunteered,” Angie asked as she offered her arm.

  “Yes,” Chen replies, “just as you did.”

  My mind started to race. My immunity to becoming a zombie had been a matter of sheer luck. As Dr. Matley had explained it in that conference room back in Cheyenne Mountain, this immunity only occurred in about twenty percent of female cancer patients, or neoplasma malignum carriers, as she liked to call us. It had something to do with the fluctuation in hormone levels, and at the time of ovulation as these levels peaked, a woman became impervious to the Mortem virus.

  This occurrence had brought on the opportunity of creating Divus serum, something that had evolved naturally in my bloodstream by exposure to Mortem at the right time. And Angie had indeed volunteered to be injected by this man-made version of the serum, but for a man, this brought on a whole different set of complications. Men would need added treatment because of the lack of hormones.

  Dr. Chen finished drawing blood from Angie and, after labeling the vials, placed them on the tray next to mine.

  “And considering the insanity of that act,” I said, ignoring the fake hurt look on Angie’s face as I referenced to the fact of her volunteering, “the risk for these men would even be higher, considering the fact that you would have to expose them to active cancer cells.”

  “Are they aware that you’ve doomed them to a lifetime of being treated like a leper?” Angie added. “If they survive, that is.”

  Dr. Chen held up his hand to silence us.

  “Please,” he said, “it is not up to me to fill you in, but a meeting has already been scheduled later this afternoon for you to speak with Colonel Marshall.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” I asked and heard the plea in my voice. “Please tell me this isn’t about Warren’s super soldier theory.”

  About an hour later, we walked down a cozy, heated hallway inside one of the many buildings that we encountered on this base. Fortunately, Chen had driven us by car or else I would have never found it. Well, Angie might have, but I surely wouldn’t have.

  Still, despite the enormity of the base and the fact I had no sense of direction, I knew this place to be Alaskan Command. We had come here the day we had arrived to meet with Colonel Marshall, and now we were about to meet her for the third time.

  It felt kind of strange that this woman who had dictated so much of our lives these past months and whose name I had heard mentioned at least twice a day was a total stranger to me.

  As the outside of the building suggested, the inside had a warm feeling to it, besides the temperature. The structure looked like a ski lodge and could have come straight out of a brochure promising vacations in a winter wonderland. Inside the walls were sand-colored and alternated by wooden doors that had kept their natural color.

  After a check of our IDs at the door, Chen led us past the reception desk with a wave of his hand. He guided us along a hallway, stopped at one of the doors, and knocked. I hadn’t heard a reply, but Chen must have because he opened the door and stepped inside. I glanced at Angie with what must have looked insecure enough for her to give me an encouraging nod and then step in ahead of me.

  Chen hadn’t answered my question about the super soldiers and urged us to wait with any other questions for Colonel Marshall to explain. I hadn’t liked that answer but had kept quiet as we drove over here. Now that same question gnawed at me. The things Dr. David had done in his pursuit of creating this new type of soldier had been horrific. Hundreds had suffered and even died from the pain he had inflicted. Ash and I had felt that pain first hand. I tried to keep those memories at bay, but I couldn’t deny the fear and humiliation I had felt as soldiers had stripped me naked and strapped me onto a cold steel table. Dr. David had even come to gloat as they cut into my flesh.

  I shuddered and shook my head as if to chase the memories into the darkest recesses of my mind where they belonged. Following Angie, we found Colonel Marshall sitting at the head a rectangular table. She stood as we entered and extended a hand in greeting.r />
  She looked immaculate in her knee-length skirt, dark-blue jacket decorated with an eagle spreading its wings on her shoulders, and a whole range of metal and colorful insignias on her chest. She had short blond hair and a friendly smile.

  Although she didn’t look threatening, I didn’t feel at ease, because to her right stood Staff Sergeant Eric Preston. The man kept his eyes on the wall at the other side of the table as if we hadn’t even entered the room.

  “Welcome,” Marshall said as she shook our hands and gestured for us to take a seat. Fortunately, Angie had entered the room first and took the seat across from the staff sergeant.

  “This is Staff Sergeant Eric Preston,” Marshall said in a formal voice. “I believe you haven’t officially met.” The staff sergeant spared us a glance and nodded. “He is well aware of who you are and why you are here, so I suggest we skip formalities and go straight to the problem at hand.” Marshall’s eyes shifted to Dr. Chen, who had taken up a seat across from me, next to the staff sergeant.

  “Of course,” Chen said in that calming voice of his. “Ever since the outbreak of Mortem virus, we’ve been searching for a way to defeat the threat posed by the infected.” He raised his hands off the table and gestured at Angie and me.

  “You, along with Dr. Kelly Matley’s research, have ensured that we were able to do so,” he said. He didn’t say that Matley had worked at Warren’s side to create Mortem virus in the first place, but I didn’t think it would be in my best interest to mention that. “Staff Sergeant Preston and two others under the command of Colonel Marshall have volunteered to take part in our expanded research.”

  “Why would you do that?” I asked Preston in a sharp voice. I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but I was baffled by the potential sacrifice that this would mean for him. The staff sergeant shifted his gaze only slightly until his eyes met mine. His hard stare made me feel as if I were about to be chastised, but the man kept his mouth shut. I couldn’t decide if the chastising might have been worse than his silence.

  “You have been on this base for a while now and outside information has been slim,” Marshall started to explain. “At least, it has been for you.” She shuffled through some papers inside a folder laid out before her and picked up a sheet. “Your only outside contact has been with FBI Agent Rodrigo Marsden, his family, and Ms. Rebecca Reed.”

  “Ash,” Angie and I both chimed in unison. Marshall glanced up at us and quirked the tinniest of smiles.

  “Of course. Ash,” she added. She placed the sheet of paper on the table as she continued. “Ash’s information of the outside world had been limited as well, and we have instructed Agent Marsden, including his family who she resides with, to keep it that way. We didn’t want you to worry.”

  “How bad is it?” Angie asked, straight to the point.

  “It’s bad,” Dr. Chen answered. “That is why we have sped up testing on human subjects.” His use of the word subjects brought a nasty taste to my mouth, and I had to bite my tongue from verbally abusing the short man sitting across from me. Dr. David had used that phrase as well, and I couldn’t stand the word. My hands gripped the armrests of my chair, and I squeezed them hard to release some of the tension that seemed to be building inside me. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to flip out on these people, and I tried to take calming breaths.

  “At this point, the eastern side of the Mississippi border is completely overrun. We have managed to contain several smaller outbreaks in Texas, Colorado, and even Utah,” Chen continued, “but time isn’t on our side. We need to act.”

  I closed my eyes at his mention of Colorado and wondered if I had been the one responsible for the outbreak that had occurred there. Trying to escape Warren’s men inside Cheyenne Mountain and during a fight with one of his goons named William, I had triggered the change in the big man. I shuddered at the thought of sinking my teeth into William’s ear and biting off a decent chunk. At the time, I hadn’t thought of the blood flowing from my mouth after I’d received a punch in the face and, with it, had infected William.

  The big man had turned instantly and torn through the military facility like a raving lunatic, infecting anyone in his path. Some of those infected could have escaped and caused more havoc in the state of Colorado than I might have imagined. Unwittingly, Chen was trying my nerves by raking up all these memories I was hoping to forget.

  I didn’t know whether Angie noticed, but she shifted her arm to rest against mine as if offering a sign of comfort. Fortunately, Marshall took over from Chen.

  “So far the results from Staff Sergeant Preston’s inoculation and his two colleagues look promising, and we want to expand the field of testing,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Oh,” I said. I didn’t like where this was going, although it was to be expected. Dr. Chen was right, we were running out of time and I guessed the more unconventional options might be in order. I didn’t have to like them, though.

  “A group of people have taken refuge in a distribution center just outside Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, and we haven’t been able to extract them,” Marshall said.

  “Why not?” Angie asked.

  “Because we don’t have the resources. They are spread thin as it is, and we can barely even supply the soldiers and civilians remaining at the base,” Marshall explained. As if knowing we would have more questions she added, “Most of our troops have been relocated to secure the border along the Mississippi. The ones remaining in the infected parts of the country provide the help they can, but the infection rate is too high, and for most people, it is too late.”

  It was evident in her voice that the situation hadn’t left Colonel Marshall untouched, but I also sensed that she was someone who was capable of doing what needed to be done. This made me kind of dread what her next words would be.

  “We want you to fly to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and head out to distribute Divus serum to the people inside the DC.”

  I wanted to say something but sensed my mouth was hanging open.

  “Wait, what?” I managed to say.

  “How does that make sense?” Angie said, sitting up and leaning on the table.

  “With ‘you,’ I’m hoping you mean the guys trained to do this, right,” I said, pointing a finger at Preston. He didn’t seem to take offense.

  “You won’t fly those distribution center folks out, but you’re willing to fly us in,” Angie said with disdain in her voice.

  I was still trying to figure out whom Marshall meant by “you,” and it took me a moment to pick up on Angie’s comment, but it made me wonder if they didn’t want to rescue these people.

  “There are over fifty people out there,” Marshall said. “We just don’t have the resources to fly them out.”

  “Then get them to—what was the name of the base?” I said.

  “Maxwell,” Angie replied.

  “Maxwell’s current situation prohibits any form of extraction, but I’ll be honest with you,” Marshall said, “this DC provides an opportunity.”

  “Here we go,” Angie said.

  “You have to understand that if this works, it might save us all, and you of all people should know how careful we have to be with our test groups,” Chen said. “And this DC is remote, and we would be able to monitor them from Maxwell.”

  The pieces started to come together, and I did understand their need to distribute Divus into a broader group of people, but this left those particular people without a choice. Divus would effectively turn them into virus incubators. They wouldn’t turn into a zombie, but they would be able to infect others. This would mean isolation for the rest of their lives unless they decided to inoculate the entire world, but maybe that was the plan all along. I wasn’t sure I would mind that. Mars could get inoculated, and that would mean I didn’t have to worry about killing him with a simple kiss.

  “Injecting these people with Divus makes them Mortem virus incubators,” Angie said, “a situation like that might be impossible to con
trol.”

  “We are looking into ways to circumvent that, but that is also a reason why we need to expand testing,” Chen said.

  “These people will be overrun by the infected,” a low voice said. All our heads perked up in the direction of Preston, whom I hadn’t heard speak yet. “There are too many infected, and Maxwell troops won’t be able to stop them. If this serum works the way I’ve been told it does, then we should be able to just drive up to the DC and knock on their door—right?”

  He looked up at Angie and me in search of conformation. I nodded. He was right: the zombies wouldn’t look or sniff twice if they saw us. I didn’t want to say that they might follow me around like lemmings. That was what they had done the last time I had encountered them. I didn’t know if it had something to do with what Warren had done to this new version of zombies the fact that I had been the cause for the outbreak in the first place.

  “Then why are we discussing this?” Preston continued. “These people are isolated as it is, and this serum might buy them some more time—time Dr. Chen here can use to perfect the solution.” Preston closed his mouth and then shot an apologetic glance at Marshall.

  She waited a moment, maybe to see whether any of us wanted to add something, and then said, “Thank you, Staff Sergeant. The decision has been made; you will leave first thing tomorrow.”

  Her eyes shifted from Angie to me, and I felt the blood drain from my face. I hesitated before I stuck a hand in the air and asked, “Could you clarify who it is you mean when you say you?”

  | 8

  Ash

  “Get in here,” I said, grabbing Luke’s shirt as he was about to step off the porch. A gun went off, followed by a loud cry.

  “Ash, let go,” he said, sounding annoyed. “I need to check what’s going on.”

  “If that is what I think it is, then you need to get back in here,” I replied and tugged harder. “Let’s check the back door.” Unable to break my hold on him, he relented and followed me inside the house.