by Steven Booth
“Shit fire,” Scratch said.
Sheppard showed his palms. “I’m begging you. You’re all we have to work with. Help me help mankind. Together we could save the civilized world from something that should have never seen the light of day, something I feel personally responsible for. I need your help.”
“Uh, Captain?” Alex cleared his throat. His jaw was clenched. “I’m just thrilled that you have finally been reunited with Penny and Scratch here. Good luck to all three of you. But why the hell am I still here?”
Rubenstein shifted in his chair.
“Because you were injected Alex.” Sheppard faced him. “Willingly or not, you are now part of the search for the cure. Originally you were just in a control group. Now that you are aware of the purpose of the experiments, it would be… unfair to continue to…” Sheppard stumbled over the words. He took a deep breath and stepped closer. “You have a stable strain of the virus within you. A possible vaccine, if you will. Your immune system is at least producing antibodies that could be useful in reversing the most dangerous effects of the virus. That’s what Dr. Rubenstein was doing back at the rehab center.”
Rubenstein said, “You were, shall we say, an incubator. The host for a cure.”
“Get it out of me, right now!” Alex turned to Rubenstein. “You know that that stuff you injected into us made my skin crawl from the start. I told you so every damn day you came to stare at me. Being vaccinated wasn’t exactly what I would call a fun experience. I don’t suppose we could persuade you to try it on yourself today? I’d like to watch that.”
Rubenstein looked to Sheppard for support. Sheppard shook his head almost imperceptibly. Neither man responded to Alex’s suggestion. Miller shook her head in dismay.
“Tell me something,” said Miller, softly. “Are you still experimenting with viable zombies?”
Sheppard blinked. “What?”
“Karl,” Miller said, “I know they’re here. I can… feel them.”
“That is… interesting.” Sheppard moved closer. He leaned over her. His voice dropped lower out of reflex. “I won’t lie to you, Penny, even though it’s also classified. We do have some test subjects here. For cures that didn’t work. Sick people who have succumbed to the virus.”
“Jesus, Karl,” shouted Scratch, “can’t you just say yes?” Everyone jumped back. The guard outside the door turned the knob. When the racket stopped he just remained at his post.
“All right,” Sheppard said. “Yes.”
“Holy shit!” Scratch and Sheppard both looked at Miller.
“What’s happening to me?” Miller asked.
“You are a wonder,” Sheppard said, “a living miracle.” He continued to stand next to Miller, but his composure slipped. He ran his hand through his hair. He seemed stricken with remorse. He turned and went back to his seat at the head of the table. “I will explain everything later, I give you my word. We really need you, Penny. We need you and Scratch both. If you don’t help, millions will die needlessly. We have to find a cure. There is no other way out of this mess.”
Miller was getting tired. And very, very hungry. “What exactly would you need us to do?”
Sheppard brightened a bit. He sat next to Miller, and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Nothing objectionable, I assure you. Let us observe, test your blood now and then, maybe the occasional EKG or PET scan, do a few mostly non-invasive tests.”
“Mostly,” said Miller dryly.
Scratch said, “That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
Miller eyed Sheppard suspiciously. Something didn’t feel right—their presence seemed almost unnecessary.
“How long?” she asked.
“What?”
“How long do we need to stay?”
Sheppard seemed surprised by that question. “Well,” he said, hesitating. “Until we succeed and find the cure.”
“And what if that’s never?” Miller said. “Do you plan to keep us locked up here forever?”
Before Sheppard could respond, Rubenstein cleared his throat. “I understand your concern, Penny. I guarantee you, if we haven’t found what Captain Sheppard is looking for in the next five days, I will personally see to it that you are relocated out of his research program.”
Sheppard’s head snapped around. Miller watched him as he gave Rubenstein a wilting stare. Rubenstein, on the other hand, had the self-satisfied look that could only come from a double-cross. Something strange was going on there, and Miller was determined to find out what.
“Five days ain’t so bad,” said Scratch. He hadn’t noticed the exchange.
Sheppard turned back to Penny and Scratch. “Well, then, there you have it.” He was sweating now, and Miller saw that his hands were shaking.
Miller’s eyes fell on Rubenstein. Something about his overconfident demeanor reminded her of the x-ray issue back at the center. “What about the tumor?” Miller asked Sheppard, though she kept her eyes fixed on Rubenstein.
Sheppard straightened up. “I beg your pardon?”
“Dr. Pants-on-Fire here showed me a picture of a tumor in my head the size of a ping-pong ball. Is it really there or was he bullshitting us? Am I sick or not?”
“I haven’t been briefed on that subject.” Sheppard glared at Rubenstein, who was studying patterns in the carpet. “As far as I know, a brain tumor has nothing to do with what’s going on. I’d have heard otherwise. I’m sure there’s some other explanation. You’re probably not sick, Penny.” Sheppard gave Rubenstein one last angry look. He turned back to Miller. “Nevertheless, we’ll have all that checked out immediately, of course. Just to be certain. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“I suppose we should get to work, seeing as we have only five days.” Sheppard stood, signaling the meeting was over.
“Does work include food and shut-eye, Karl?” asked Scratch. “We haven’t had much of either in the last twenty-four hours.”
Sheppard coughed. “Yes, of course. I’ll have your escort take you to your quarters. Get something to eat and some rest.”
Miller stood, and Scratch and Alex followed her lead. “Which way’s out?”
“Stand by a second, Penny.” Sheppard turned to Scratch. “Hey, Scratch, may I speak to you?” He gestured to the corner of the room.
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Scratch glanced at Miller for approval, but looked away, as if to say he didn’t need Miller’s okay after all. He trotted over to Sheppard.
Miller watched the two of them as they whispered in the corner. Without her super-hearing, she couldn’t make out what was being said, but Scratch’s big, lascivious grin and quick laugh made her think Sheppard was telling him a dirty joke. Scratch patted Sheppard on the shoulder, and then returned to Miller.
“What was that all about?” she whispered.
“Guy stuff,” said Scratch. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Who’s worried?” replied Miller. She shook her head.
Men.
CHAPTER TEN
CRYSTAL PALACE
“Speak your mind, Captain Sheppard.”
“I don’t even know where to start, Dr. Rubenstein.”
“At the beginning, one would suppose.”
“First you continue research on the Enhanced Bioweapons program without proper authorization, and then you promise Sheriff Miller that the research will stop in five days. That’s absurd. What the hell were you thinking? Our orders were unambiguous, and you know that. All work on the Enhanced Bioweapons program was to stop immediately and then to remain suspended indefinitely.”
“Please, call me Arthur. I shall call you Karl. We are colleagues now, after all. I’m surprised you would think I would do something like that.” Rubenstein smiled broadly. “I read those orders, too, Karl. The term indefinitely did not appear in the text. The phrase I believe you are looking for is, until progress is made toward a vaccine or cure. If you’re not making any progress, you should report that.”
“How wa
s I going to move forward without Sheriff Miller? Penny is the first human to have experienced both the zombie virus and the accelerant and survived. You were supposed to turn her over directly to me, damn it. You had absolutely no right to jeopardize my research by conducting experiments on my subjects.”
“Here we are, splitting hairs and defining terms again. You should have become an attorney, Karl. All right, then let’s be precise, shall we? I have received a mandate from Mountain Home. Due to my new assignment, they are now technically my subjects, not yours.”
“You… you have a mandate? You son of a bitch! Whose cock did you have to suck to get that?”
“You’re projecting your own sexual preferences on me, Karl. I’m not insulted by that, I’m merely amused.”
“Fuck you.”
“And he does it again, Herr Freud. As it turned out, I didn’t need to suck anything. All I had to do was wait for a bit and then file a few confidential observations. When you fell behind schedule, the mandate was given to me.”
“I was told…”
“Calm down. Stop pacing around, Karl. You’re making us both dizzy. As it turns out, I don’t care what you were told. The situation has changed. The fact is, I do have the mandate, and my request for an expanded—and by that, I mean virtually unlimited—emergency budget and a heavier personnel allocation is already in the works.”
Sheppard stopped moving. He glared. “I’m still in charge until I’m notified.”
“You have five days.”
“To complete this series of experiments? You can’t be serious, Arthur!”
“I’m a serious as the plague itself, Karl. Wrap things up. You are finished.”
“Five days.”
“Is there an echo in this office? Look, it appears you have your work cut out for you, doesn’t it? I’ll let you get back to it. You know the way out.”
“You’ll never get away with this.”
“I already have.”
“You smug bastard, your ambition may very well end up destroying what’s left of the world.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CRYSTAL PALACE, PRIVATE QUARTERS
Once again, Miller and Scratch moved in together, this time with far more skepticism. Their new quarters were plush and not too different from those at the Serenity Center. The environment wasn’t quite as luxurious—no calm ocean right outside their window—and many of the furnishings seemed to have been lifted from various Las Vegas hotels, which gave the place an odd, mismatched look. They were on the surface level of the complex, situated in a low concrete building that hadn’t even existed during their last visit. Like the base itself, this new structure had been painted to match the desert and was well camouflaged by rocks and sand. One long, tinted window looked out on the base and allowed a truncated view of the empty, cactus-freckled hardpan. Inside, their suite was well appointed and comfortable, giving Miller an ugly memory of their very recent trauma. She wandered around, taking in the large bathroom with glassed-in shower and Jacuzzi tub, the comfortable, private eating nook, and the large mirror on the wall next to the king-sized bed.
Scratch looked out the window. “That’s one hell of a view.”
“I never was a huge fan of the empty desert,” said Miller absently. “Living in Flat Rock was Terrill Lee’s idea.”
Scratch didn’t respond. Miller was appreciative. He shaded his eyes.
“What is that over there? Cattle?”
“Where?”
“Across the base. See all the movement by those concrete barriers?”
Miller squinted. Sure enough, there were a couple hundred bodies swarming around, across the base and to the west. Maybe soldiers on parade or folks watching a sporting event of some kind. No, they moved more like animals. Miller couldn’t make them out clearly. The sight made her uneasy. She had an ugly premonition. She wanted to believe it was just cows—though Miller couldn’t see why they would need that many head of cattle, unless they also had a shitload of slaughter pens. This was the U.S. Army after all, they had a blank check from the Treasury, especially now, in a time of crisis. Even feeding the whole damn base wouldn’t take that many steers, unless they were planning for a siege that blocked air transport. The only other option was horrid and unnerving, though it also made perfect sense. Those were likely zombies. Undead kept for experimental purposes. Hell, they were failed experiments.
The bastards…
Scratch stared. “Is that what I think it is, Penny?”
“Looks that way,” Miller said, quietly. “Unless maybe the government just decided that cattle farming will be the next high-tech industry.”
Scratch looked around the room again. “They keep sticking us in honey traps, don’t they?”
“Over and over.”
Scratch surveyed the room, a puzzled look on his face. “I wonder who they built this place for. It’s too plush. I don’t know much about military life, but this don’t look like what I’d expect from any Bachelor Officer’s Quarters.”
Miller looked at him for a long moment. “You haven’t figured that out yet? They built this for us. And I mean specifically for us, Scratch.”
“No shit?”
“They’ve been hunting for us since we disappeared back in Colorado. They probably began furnishing this place a week ago when we first got caught in Malibu and taken to Rubenstein’s House of Horrors.”
“I guess that’s sort of cool.”
“Cool?” Miller couldn’t quite hide the look of contempt on her face. “This is just another one of Sheppard’s laboratories, and we’re just another set of test subjects. Maybe it has to be this way, I don’t know, but I don’t like it one damn bit.”
“Look, what have you suddenly got against Karl?” Scratch said. His stubble was starting to show, but he still looked and felt like a stranger. “I mean, I know you two have had your differences from time to time, but he’s not such a bad guy. He just tends to hang out with the wrong crowd. I can talk from experience that that can be kind of exhilarating.”
Miller sat down on the bed. She crossed her arms. “The wrong crowd? You mean like Sanchez, who started this whole zombie mess, or General Gifford, who almost got us all killed? I like Sheppard, but he’s got his own issues. He’s still trying to play God, and someone has given him a promotion and a big budget and permission from on high to conduct some crazy-assed experiments.”
“Why are you so upset again, Penny?” Scratch was pacing now. Miller didn’t know how to interpret that fact. It wasn’t one of his usual habits.
“You really need to ask?”
“Ever since we left Colorado,” Scratch said, “we have been looking for a decent place to hide, and now this time we’re finally safe. On top of that, we even have a chance to put a stop to the whole damned plague. I’m tired of running. We decided to work with them. Why do you still feel all bent out of shape?”
Miller’s jaw clenched. She wanted to point out that she had heard this argument before. That hadn’t worked out so good that time either. But then Scratch wasn’t himself these days. Instead of snapping back at him, she said, “Scratch, do you remember that first night in my jailhouse, the night when the zombies came?”
“How could I forget?”
“Since that day, it has been my responsibility to keep you and Sheppard and Terrill Lee and God knows how many other people alive. I tried my best. It was my duty, and I was happy to do it. But people still died. Then Terrill Lee got killed along with a lot of others and Sheppard flew off into the sunset and now that just leaves me with you.”
Scratch stopped pacing to lean against the wall.
Miller continued. “You’re still my responsibility, Scratch. I didn’t mind so much when you were putting yourself in danger to protect the group. Honestly I couldn’t expect anything less from you. But it isn’t your nature to try to save the world, and I’m beginning to realize it may not be mine, either. Your old friend Carter Crosby was right. In the end, maybe I don’t know the first thing ab
out protecting the world against the zombies. I’m not even very good at protecting the people I actually care about. If only I had thought faster, maybe Terrill Lee…”
Miller held back the tears. She stopped talking.
“Hold on, Penny. Do not take that evil bus to Hell again! You did exactly what you needed to do when Terrill Lee got bit. One of us had to do it. We both know that. So did Terrill Lee. It ain’t your fault that he didn’t have the courage or the aim to shoot himself in the head properly. And when you put him down, it was the right thing to do.”
“And if this experiment goes haywire and you turn into one of those slobbering freaks, am I supposed to just put you down too?”
“Damn right.”
Miller stared.
Scratch came over and sat down next to her on the bed. He put his hands on her shoulders. “But that ain’t ever going to happen.”
He tried to embrace her, but Miller pulled away. “Don’t give me that macho, ‘I’m bulletproof’ bullshit. You’ve been lucky, Scratch, that’s all. We’ve all been damned lucky. What happened with Terrill Lee was inevitable, and so is something going wrong with this experiment. And now every part of my being is screaming that this is another really bad decision.”
“Penny, you’re exhausted and scared,” Scratch said. “Listen to me. I love you. I want to be with you forever. But we got one little problem with that arrangement.”
Miller forced a small smile. “Only one?”
“Only one biggie, girl. You got a live, highly contagious virus floating around in your system. If Sheppard is right and I’m either going to get the virus from you when we make love, or I already have the damn bug, I definitely want a crack medical team handy just in case… something happens. Why? Because the alternative—not being with you, not touching you, not making love to you—is already kind of a death sentence.”