Deadlocked 8

by A. R. Wise

  “They’re part of the problem, Cobra.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The people you met on the Surface aren’t like you or me or the rest of the Dawns. They’re…” She searched for the right word. “They’re not as evolved as we are.”

  “Evolved?”

  “Yes. The Dawns are the next step in human evolution. You and the other girls represent the future of mankind, and the people like Levon are from a dying age. They don’t have a place in our new society.”

  “What makes them different?”

  “Quite a bit,” said mother. “You’re a perfect human, Cobra. You were created that way. We took great pains to ensure that your genetic code was as close to perfect as we could make it. You’re everything that normal humans can only hope to be. From head to toe, you’re perfect.”

  “According to you.”

  “No, Cobra, according to science.”

  “But out there,” I pointed up, “not everyone looks like we do. They don’t all have blonde or red hair, and they have skin of all sorts of colors, not just white like ours. What makes us better than them?”

  “It’s complicated, Cobra. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “You’ve given me so many good reasons to trust you.” I couldn’t hide my contempt anymore.

  “Don’t test me. I’ve been good to you.”

  “Not a test,” I said as I laid back down. “I’ve learned all I need to know.”

  20 – Pieces in Place

  Beatrice Dell

  Jerald was up to something. He’d been avoiding me all day, despite my multiple attempts to contact him. The other members of The Electorate that were stuck here with me pleaded for information, but it was necessary to keep them in the dark about a great many things. Nothing destroys a game quicker than too many players, and I didn’t need their help. I also didn’t need their input. There were too many fractures in The Electorate these days, but what we needed was a single, unified plan. I had to be the one to take charge of the situation, and I was confident that I could make everything turn out to our benefit.

  I had the ability to leave if needed. I’d taken Hank’s badge, which would grant me access to the rest of the facility, but I didn’t want anyone to know that I had it. I’d snuck off during the night, and got to the Administrator’s area to contact Cobra, a risky move even at night, but I had to make sure she was warned about what might happen.

  Hero’s blood was still with me, tucked into my coat pocket, and I would use it to force Covington to lock down the facility if needed. However, I was hoping that Jerald could manage to capture the Rollers first. He was supposed to have met with me in the morning, but he never showed up. In fact, none of the guards or doctors we usually saw ever came. We were left here to wonder what was wrong, and every minute I grew more impatient.

  There was something wrong, I was certain of it.

  Unlike Richard, Jerald was a wildcard. We were running out of time to protect ourselves from the ravages of the Tempest Strain, and Jerald was fighting against the plan that The Electorate and Covington had agreed to. I knew that Richard still consulted Jerald, which meant it was possible that he might change his mind about a great many things that I depended on turning in my favor.

  I knew that a release of the infection within the facility would force Covington to lock the facility down. I’d found a way around Covington’s uncertainty, and made it possible to save the Dawns, as well as myself, no matter what occurred.

  Ideally, I didn’t want the lockdown to occur because of an outbreak. That was the riskier option. I preferred that Covington initiated the lockdown on his own, and thus properly prepared us for it by securing enough doctors, nurses, and Administrators to keep the facility running properly. To throw the entire facility into chaos by releasing the infection was dangerous and risky.

  The Electorate needed Covington dead. They’d made that clear enough. And I knew that it wasn’t worth the risk for them to come and save me with Covington still alive. Covington and I were among few surviving members of The Electorate that knew the truth about what happened two decades earlier. That knowledge was dangerous, and the revelation that Covington still owned his original tablet meant that he had the ability to transfer this information to an unwitting populace that we’d protected from the truth for so many years.

  While our scientists toiled away on the mainland, locked in these underground bunkers and working on the development of the Tempest Strain, we were slowly eradicating evidence of what we had done. None of the people that lived in this area were to ever survive The Noah Initiative, which was something that Covington had learned. His and Jerald’s rebellion was exactly what we’d feared all along. Knowledge is power, and in the wrong hands, it’s absolutely deadly.

  I was pacing outside of the elevator. None of the members of The Electorate had been allowed to speak with their Dawns yet today, and we’d grown restless. I didn’t have the patience to wait with the others, and had come here so that I could be the first to chastise our escort once he arrived.

  The bell chimed as the elevator reached our floor, and I was surprised when the door opened to reveal Jerald himself instead of Gabe or one of his other lackeys. I was further startled by his appearance.

  To his credit he wasn’t disheveled. He maintained his military-strict style and composure, with his shirt tucked neatly in his slacks and his weapon on full display in the holster at his side, but his skin had turned a sickly, pale green. His pock-marked jaw shuddered as he stood there, and I realized he was shivering. The behemoth of a man, a tower of strength and self-assurance, had succumbed to the infection that would eventually ravage the world.

  He smiled down at me.

  “Jerald,” I said in shock.

  “Just the bitch I was looking for.” He drew his pistol.

  I backed away, but he breached the distance between us in a flash. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me to the wall with enough force to cause me to whimper. Jerald set the barrel of the gun to the side of my face.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in terror. “Why are you…”

  “You thought you were so smart. You thought you had us all fooled.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. But it doesn’t even matter anymore. You’re not going to win.”

  He pushed the barrel harder against my temple, causing me to wince. Then he started to tap the gun against me, taunting me.

  “Are you going to cry?”

  “Someone’s lied to you, Jerald. I don’t know what you were told, but it’s not…”

  “Stop with the lies, Beatrice. I know about Hank, and Gabe, and the other people that have been working with The Electorate.”

  I knew about Hank, but I wasn’t certain what he meant when he said that Gabe was working with us. I didn’t have to entirely feign ignorance when I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I found Hank’s communications with The Electorate. I know how you’ve been injecting Levon with the virus every night so that we would think his disease was mutating. I know all about your little scheme, you bitch.” He pushed at me with the gun.

  “If you kill me, then you’ll lose any chance you’ve got at surviving.”

  “Look at me, I’m dead already. I didn’t even get bit, but apparently your little virus can sneak in through the skin.”

  I was struggling to come up with a way to save myself. I could feel that gun barrel tapping against my temple, and sweat began to drip down my brow. “What about your men? You want them safe, right? Then work with me, Jerald. Stop fighting the inevitable.”

  “You know, there was one thing I couldn’t figure out about you and The Electorate,” said Jerald as he pressed me harder against the wall. “You were all so interested in finding those Sons of Reagan. But if you were going to release the disease no matter what, then why’d you want them so bad?”

  “Do you really think I’m going to tell you?�
� I asked. “Why would I do that? So I could give you some satisfaction before you kill me?”

  He grunted as he squinted at me. Then he spat in my face before releasing me. I inched along the wall, certain he would chase me, but he stayed put as I wiped his saliva off my cheek.

  “Doesn’t matter anyways, because I already found them.”

  “You did?” I asked.

  He grinned and said, “Last night, one of the drones took a photo of a bunch of trucks moving out south of here, around the Castle Rock area. It looks like the High Rollers are setting up a new settlement, and I’m about to put an end to them once and for all.”

  “Jerald, no,” I said and took a step closer to him. He pointed his gun at me, daring me to take another step. “You can’t kill them. Jerald, please. Listen, you’re right about me, about what I was doing, but you can’t possibly want to put so many people in danger like this. If you kill Levon’s friends then you’re putting the entire Dawn program in jeopardy. I know you hate The Electorate, and what we did, but those girls never did anything to you.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he said as he savored the rare power he suddenly had over me. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet in you right now.”

  “Because a gunshot inside the facility will trigger an alarm, and there are still people here that are loyal to The Electorate.”

  He laughed and said, “You think they could stop me?”

  “Go ahead and do it,” I said as I stood tall and defiant. “At least then there’s a chance someone can stop you. The Electorate needs the Sons of Reagan more than it needs me, and I’m willing to die for what we believe in.”

  Jerald laughed again, but this time I detected the uncertainty in him. He lowered his gun and slipped it back into his holster. “Don’t worry, Beatrice. I’m not going to kill you because there’s a worse fate in store for you. In the next couple of days you’ll get your just rewards, I promise.”

  I was curious, but didn’t dare ask. He was about to leave me, and I’d come close enough to dying already. I watched as he walked to the elevator, a wry smirk on his ugly face.

  “You really thought you’d win.” He couldn’t help but gloat at his apparent victory. He pointed down at the ground and said, “This is my house, you stupid bitch. My house.”

  I stayed silent, which irked him more.

  “Nothing to say now, you fucking snake? You’ve got nothing to say?”

  “No, Jerald. Not unless you’re willing to work with me. Please don’t kill Levon’s friends. Do whatever else you need to, but let them live.”

  He eyed me with suspicion, and for a brief moment I thought he might consider appeasing my request. Then his lips curled into a devilish smile before he said, “I’m going to enjoy wiping them off the face of the Earth.” The elevator opened behind him and he stepped inside as he continued speaking. “I’ve wanted to kill them for years, and now I want it even more. Thanks, Beatrice. You’ve made my day.”

  The elevator closed, leaving me alone to sigh in relief. Then I couldn’t help but smile.

  Jerald was going to go out and finish the one task I’d been woefully unable to accomplish. Not only was he going to die from the infection that addled him, but he was going to lead his men on a mission to murder the only other people that could’ve threatened The Electorate’s plan.

  Charles Reagan and his group of terrorists had been a concern for The Electorate for years. Covington had assumed that we were looking for Reagan’s group because of their immunity, and we’d been happy to feed him that false information. On the contrary, it wasn’t simply that immunity to the virus that was a concern, it was their knowledge of the truth about the apocalypse that we needed to eradicate. It was dangerous to have a group of terrorists on the loose that were immune to the infection and also knew that we were the ones responsible for the original release of the disease. The members of the group we referred to as the Sons of Reagan carried the truth in their blood, and now they would finally be erased.

  All of the pieces were coming together nicely.

  PART FIVE – A Good Team

  21 – A Farmhouse on a Hill

  Annie Conrad

  We’d planned on making it out to the water tower that Harrison had marked on our map before the end of the day, but Ben refused to leave his friend lying face down in a ditch. I wasn’t sure if Ben clung to Red world sentimentality about the dead, or if he thought Harrison did and wanted to honor him, but either way I wasn’t willing to argue.

  Ben understood burying Harrison was pointless and too time consuming, so he decided to build a quick pyre in the parking lot of a nearby gas station. He gathered flammable material from the gutted building, breaking off what dry wood he could find and gathering old magazines, paper, and rags. We shared few words during the grim task, and I think Ben appreciated my silence.

  I stood guard, and we both understood that the gunshot earlier would inevitably attract attention. I had a good vantage point out across the plains that hugged the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and I wasn’t worried about being caught by surprise. There was a strip mall on the other side of the road, but the ditch between would hamper any horde that emerged from there, giving us plenty of time to escape. In the opposite direction stretched a barren field, the dirt hard-packed and thirsty, bearing no life other than bushes that the wind hadn’t quite uprooted to turn into tumbleweeds. Thorny branches shuddered when the wind gusted, and dust flowed across the landscape in a way that reminded me of waves cresting and crashing on a beach in the movies that Hero used to watch. There were no waves or beaches out here; only dead plants and dry earth.

  From beyond the ditch, past the bloody corpse of our lost companion, I saw a man emerge from the burned out carcass of a building that had once been a store. He was emaciated and nearly nude, although his leathery grey skin might’ve been mistaken for a coat. He had long, stringy hair that fell down over a face that looked as if it had been raked by a hundred claws. His left eye was missing, the socket long ago dried out, and his lips had receded to allow his yellow teeth and blackened gums to show prominently.

  “We’ve got company,” I said to Ben as I watched the Grey through the binoculars.

  “How many?”

  “Looks like just one.”

  He stood and I offered him the binoculars as he said, “When there’s one…”

  He was right. The zombies moved in packs more often than not, and it was rare to be beset upon by a loner. These monsters were compelled by the same things, and when one got excited others usually responded in kind.

  “He’s a long way off,” I said.

  Ben assumed I wanted to practice with a sniper and said, “We shouldn’t shoot him. If he gets too close, I’ll take him out with a blade.”

  My shoulder was in no shape to bear the brunt of a rifle’s kick, but Ben didn’t know that I’d reignited the old injury when I fell through the roof the night before. I was convinced that I could weather the pain, and that it wouldn’t affect me, but I certainly wasn’t going to risk inflaming my already tender shoulder by taking practice shots with a sniper rifle.

  “Help me get Harry over here,” said Ben as he walked towards the corpse of our friend that was lying across the road from us.

  I went with him, and kept an eye on the Grey that was shambling across the parking lot towards us. Just as Ben had feared, our visitor wasn’t alone. More of the inevitable horde had started to reveal themselves from the wreckage of the strip mall. They must’ve been in the neighborhood that sat behind the mall, and had headed our way after hearing Ben’s gunshot. Luckily, it didn’t seem there were any Poppers among them. This was one of the many hordes of Greys that the Rollers had spent the past couple decades murdering. Yet, despite the thousands of Greys we’d slaughtered, there always seemed to be more.

  “Looks like a horde of Greys,” I said as we got over to Harrison.

  Ben glanced up, over the ditch, and saw the wall of dead flesh that had focused on
us. “Let’s hurry,” he said with a telling lack of concern. Between the two of us, we’d lived through just about everything the apocalypse could throw at a person. Despite how terrifying the sight of a horde coming at us might’ve been to most people, we knew we still had several minutes before they even got to the ditch.

  Despite how confident we both were in our ability to finish the task and survive, free of danger, this was still uncharacteristic for Ben. We’d gotten to know each other fairly well during our time recovering after the attack at the church. He’d told me about his life before meeting the Rollers, as well as the strategies he’d employed to survive alone for so long. He insisted that the one rule a survivor should never break was simple: Don’t take unnecessary risks.

  Taking time to build a pyre for Harrison as a horde bore down on us was as good an example of taking an unnecessary risk as I could imagine.

  I glanced back at the dusty plains behind us. Winter’s grip seemed to all but disappear in the light of day, and there was no trace of moisture, let alone snow, anywhere near. The frost that we’d awoken to had melted and evaporated, giving the dry dirt barely a kiss.

  Ben had built the pyre on the concrete lot beside the gas station, a good distance from the plains, but the wind could easily carry an ember out into the tinderbox of dry weeds. If a flash fire spread out across this area as we continued south, a potential avenue of escape would be lost to us.

  Ben stood by Harrison’s head, his legs stretched with the river of blood flowing between. Harrison was face down, but I could see a portion of his shattered skull laying awkwardly away from his cheek, still connected by flesh. It looked as if he’d fallen from the sky and landed here face first, smashing and dying on impact. The bullet had torn through him, ending his pain and silencing him except for the thwump of his body as he slapped down. Now his corpse was left to rot, yet still too fresh to entice the fat flies that thrived in the Green world.