by Steven Booth
Miller turned to the lone occupant of Rubenstein’s office. A man she hadn’t ever expected to see again. He smiled weakly.
“Where’s Scratch?’ Miller said. “If he’s dead, so are you.”
“I know,” Karl Sheppard said.
Alex had his ear to the door. He whistled softly. “We’ve got movement, Penny.”
Miller studied her captive. “Okay, talk fast, Karl. It may be the last thing you ever do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
CRYSTAL PALACE, BASEMENT LEVELS
Karl Sheppard put the computer discs and the last of the documents from his file cabinet into a canvas messenger bag. He set the bag on the desk with a thump. “That’s the truth, Penny. They didn’t tell me where Scratch was quartered. If I knew I’d take you there.”
Miller clenched her fist tight enough to make the bones pop.
Sheppard swallowed. “Look, Dr. Rubenstein’s completely in charge at this point. I’ve been demoted. Rubenstein’s gone mad with power. Yes, he’s got Scratch stashed somewhere, but you know as well as I do, this is a very large installation.”
“Karl, we’ve known each other a long time. We saved each other’s asses on more than one occasion. I can’t even count the number of nights I’ve slept with your smelly feet near my face. So you know I’m being sincere when I tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
Miller stepped forward, grabbed Sheppard by the lapels, and drew his face close. Their noses almost touched. “If you don’t help me find him right fucking now, I’m going to personally punch your ticket.”
Sheppard put his hands on her shoulders. His touch made Miller feel bad about threatening him. He pushed gently in order to back away. Miller allowed him a little breathing room.
“Okay, Penny. You know I’ll help you. Let’s go find him.”
When Miller let go of his lapels, Sheppard turned toward the locked office door as if finally taking in the utter catastrophe going on down below. His shoulders sagged. He seemed miserable. “I’m sorry things all got so out of control again. I was trying to do the right thing for once. We really wanted to find a cure.”
“Excuse me, Sheriff.” Alex shifted position. He checked his weapon for the third time. “We don’t have enough time for fond reunions or recriminations. There’s a battle going on outside. I think we’d better pick up the pace.”
Miller slung the messenger bag over her shoulder. She stared at Sheppard. “It was your base for a while. You can hazard a damned good guess where Scratch might be, so I guess it’s your show. What’s the plan?”
“All right,” Sheppard said, centering at last. “You said that Rubenstein and Rat had you locked in an isolation tank. That’s our first clue. The tanks are located on level 6.”
“Good.”
Sheppard tapped his forehead, as if willing himself to think. “Rubenstein has a second lab down there, intended for experiments in undead physiology. There are secure rooms for the test subjects. I’m guessing that’s where they’d have Scratch. Personally, I hope that we find Dr. Rubenstein first. He is the one with all the information.”
Sheppard bent down to pick up the M-4 the Guardsman had left behind. Alex nervously raised his weapon, looking to Miller for direction. She waived him off, indicating that Sheppard could be trusted.
“Don’t worry, Alex,” Sheppard said, misunderstanding the moment. “I may be a medical guy, but I know how to shoot.”
“I was more concerned about whether or not you’re going to use it on us.”
“You can trust me, Corporal,” said Sheppard. He looked to Miller for support.
Miller ignored him. “Answer me this, Karl. It’s damn hairy out there. Can you fire on your own kind if you have to?”
“I can and I will.” Sheppard patted Miller on the shoulder. “Let’s go find Scratch.”
Sheppard went to the door, Alex opened it. They all leaned outside to look around. Miller could smell burnt gunpowder and the faint odor of decay. Carefully, she opened her mind to the zombies—she had learned some control by now—and the unspoken, obscene thoughts and desires of the dead immediately filled her consciousness. There were so many of them nearby, and they were rapidly multiplying as those bitten turned on others. She was instantly drowning in heartbreak and suffering, loss and bewilderment—and of course that terrible, all pervasive hunger. Miller forced her mind closed again and listened with her ears. It was still and quiet in the corridor, though they could of course hear the noise of the battle inside the hangar.
The human shouts and sounds of gunfire were diminishing. There was only one conclusion to reach. The dead were winning the war.
Sheppard took the lead. He looked around for threats, and apparently seeing none, went out into the hall. He headed to the right at a dead run. Miller and Alex kept up, the experimental serum in their veins making it easy. They followed his lead, for Sheppard knew where he was going, they did not. They stopped at the closed metal side doors.
“We’ll have to take the stairs, like you probably did getting up here,” Sheppard said, panting slightly. “That idiot Rubenstein ordered the elevators shut down when the zombies first got loose. Then he left the room.”
“Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me,” said Alex. “Wasn’t it safer that way?”
“No it was not,” Sheppard said. He clutched his weapon. “I tried to warn them that zombie triads can navigate a flight of stairs, we’d already proven it weeks ago. On the other hand, they cannot effectively use an elevator. Even three of them can’t quite figure out how to push the right buttons. Dr. Rubenstein just panicked. He wouldn’t listen to me. The man is a moron.”
Sheppard got ready for a fight. He nodded.
“Let’s do this,” Miller said.
Sheppard waved his access card at the reader. The reader beeped, but the door didn’t open. He slammed his shoulder into the stairwell door, suddenly thrusting it open with a loud clang. The door almost knocked him back and sideways. The three of them hustled noisily into the dimly lit stairwell. They headed to the left as Sheppard led them down the first flight of stairs. They spoke in whispers as they trotted along. Alex brought up the rear, covering their butts.
“Karl, what the hell was Rubenstein doing in charge?”
“Politics, Penny,” Sheppard whispered. “Rubenstein knows people at the top. It was bad enough that they gave him the keys to the kingdom, but by putting him in charge of the entire base, they effectively negated the protocols my people had spent the last few months putting into place. No one knew what they were supposed to do.”
“You lost control at the start,” Alex said. “Everyone panicked.”
Sheppard kept moving down. Their footfalls rang hollowly in the empty stairwell. “That fool got a lot of people killed tonight.”
“Where is everyone?” asked Miller. “I would have figured there would be at least a few guards stationed in here.”
“Rubenstein didn’t want a lot of witnesses. He was out to cover his ass, which tells you he may not have really had full approval from the top. Right now I don’t know what to believe.”
“I want that prick in my sights,” Alex said. He followed them down the stairs.
“When the word got to us that you’d escaped,” Sheppard continued, leading them on through the darkness, “Rubenstein really lost his marbles. He ordered almost everyone to evacuate the base, except for essential personnel. He wanted them to scour the countryside. They were to find and kill you both, so that no one would know how far he’d wandered off his mandate. He’d really screwed up doing all these new experiments.”
“But the two of us were already headed here.”
“Exactly, so he blew it again. I could have told him you’d never leave Scratch. I didn’t say a word once I realized what he was doing. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Miller paused on a step. She opened her mind a bit. She stared down into the dark stairwell. The way down seemed clear of zombie activity, at least for the time being. Sh
e motioned the men forward again. Sheppard led the way.
Sheppard resumed speaking. “Okay, in every single case the man made the wrong damned decision. Rubenstein left the base virtually undefended at a critical time, and he did it just to protect his own ass.”
Alex nodded. “Probably would have been a different outcome if he hadn’t.”
“No kidding,” Sheppard said. “He got a ton of people killed by not sealing off sections and assigning fields of fire.” He was panting now, as they sped up, hurrying down the seemingly endless staircase. “They would have been able to contain the zombies within about thirty minutes, if they had followed the protocols I put into place.”
“That explains a lot,” Miller said. “I figured the first wave of zombies would get in, cause some casualties and confusion, and galvanize the humans to fight back. Once they were occupied with their own defense, we’d have a free pass to get inside and find Scratch.”
“They blew it themselves, Penny,” Sheppard said. He seemed to sense her feelings. “Don’t start beating yourself up over that.”
“You’re probably right,” Miller said, but with a trace of disbelief. She waved them further down. “I didn’t imagine that a bunch of trained soldiers would get overwhelmed this easily, not even with a couple hundred zombies on the warpath.”
“Like I said, it was Rubenstein,” Sheppard said, perhaps a bit defensively. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “He’s to blame for everything that has gone wrong for the both of us.”
They reached a level marked with an enormous 6 on the wall. Sheppard brought the trio to a halt. He crouched down to catch his breath. Alex and Miller squatted near him. Even they needed a break. The battle noises faded away. Alex watched their rear. Miller stared into Sheppard’s eyes. She could just make out his face with the emergency lighting.
“Still your call, Karl.”
“Keep your eyes open, Penny. This level is bound to be populated by now, and not with many of ours. I’m betting Scratch is locked up somewhere here on 6. Unfortunately, most of Rubenstein’s test subjects are also down here, some of them living but a lot of them dead. Stay alert and move fast. Expect resistance.” As if to punctuate his point, Sheppard checked the load on his M-4.
Miller locked eyes with the men. “One last thing. We’re here for Scratch, not revenge. We just get Scratch, and then we get out. There’s been enough killing. Got it?”
“Agreed.”
“Lock and load.”
Sheppard pulled the door open. He hesitated for a second and then peeked into the gloom of the corridor. As with the stairwell, emergency lighting was the only illumination. The noise from the battle was sporadic as the cornered soldiers ran out of ammo. The darkness was encroaching like a living thing with its own appetite. Even with Miller’s heightened senses, she couldn’t see very far into the shadows. She just knew that it didn’t feel safe.
“If you see any humans, act like you own the place,” said Sheppard, “and follow my lead.”
Miller nodded. She studied Alex, who was sweating bullets. He’d been out of these situations for a long time, and he hadn’t had enough experience to know what being accelerated really meant. His insides were probably all screwy too, though perhaps in a different way.
Sheppard led Miller and Alex into the dimly lit corridor. The floor was not completely deserted. A pair of men in unmarked uniforms, mercenary guards, stood talking in hushed tones. They were incompetent or lazy enough to let the trio get close before reacting.
“Hold your position,” one man called. They aimed their weapons. “Identify yourselves, or we will fire on you.”
Miller exchanged looks with Alex. They were accelerated. Why not just deal with this? They came to a silent agreement. Together they flowed forward, leaving Sheppard in the dust, tackling the two strangers before they could even react to the blur of motion. Miller had her man on the ground and knocked out cold in a flash. Alex was still struggling with his, trying to choke the man out. Miller moved over to help.
The mercenary was short, stocky and very muscular. He knew how to wrestle. Somehow, despite Alex’s super strength, the guard moved quickly and smoothly, blocking each attempt by Alex to subdue him. When Miller closed in the first time, the guard even managed to shove her away with one boot. This was no normal mercenary. Miller didn’t buy it. The guard was one of them. His tremendous strength, speed and agility gave him away.
He was clearly accelerated.
Who had done this to him and why?
Miller took a risk. She tried connecting to the man, making him part of the triad with her and Alex. But for some reason she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t find him. What the hell did that mean?
Alex shifted position, still trying for a chokehold. He lost his grip and the man writhed free. Miller grabbed him by the wrist. She twisted, and pulled the guard’s arm behind him in a hammerlock, while Alex punched him repeatedly in the face. The man fought back, slammed into Miller, and somehow threw her off. They were going to have to kill him.
Two shots rang out. Miller placed them as coming from the other direction down the corridor, the exact opposite from where they’d entered. The bullets struck the man full in the chest. He fell down hard, right next to his unconscious partner, and this time he stayed down. He was already bleeding out.
Miller crouched low and covered her head. “Hold your fire, damn it! We’re still breathing!”
Whoever was firing was unclear on the concept, or perhaps they believed zombies could form complete sentences. They opened up on full auto, dozens of hot bullets plinking off the stainless steel walls. Miller dove backwards. She headed for the relative cover of a bend in the corridor. Her men followed and rolled against the wall. Then Miller, Alex, and Sheppard watched in dismay as the hail of bullets found the other downed man, the one who was unconscious, and shredded him where he lay. The air filled with smoke and the stink of blood and guts.
“Are you hit?” asked Sheppard.
Miller grunted. “Pissed off is more like it. Don’t you clowns train your people to check their fire so they don’t end up shooting the good guys?”
“Rubenstein’s offices and labs are down there,” Sheppard said. “We may not actually be all that friendly as far as they are concerned.”
“We need get down there, Karl. Is there another way in?”
Sheppard just shook his head.
Miller peeked around the corner. She pulled her head back just in time. A blast took a chunk out of the wall near her face. She thought for a long moment. There was only one emergency light overhead between them and the shooter. She picked up her rifle and prepared to spin into the clear, aim and knock it out. Before she could pull the trigger, Miller felt something macabre writing inside her mind. She held herself in check. She listened with her newly found talent.
“Sheppard? Zombies are nearby and they are closing fast.”
“You must be sensing the ones still locked up.”
“No, these aren’t locked up. And they are right on top of us, I can feel them.”
Sheppard and Alex peered into the smoky darkness with their rifles up. They exchanged glances and drew closer together. They saw nothing, but Miller had their full attention.
“Are you sure, Penny?” Sheppard whispered.
Now where the hell are they? Miller thought. There is no one else on this floor that we know of, and no other way to get in…
Still, the eerie feeling persisted.
Miller risked a peek around the corner. And that’s when the two downed mercenaries—both riddled with bullet holes and drooling blood—began to writhe around. The accelerated one managed to sit up.
Alex saw it too. He said, “Oh, fuck my life. What’s left of it, anyway.”
The guards groaned. Then they clumsily rose up to lean against the wall. They glared down at Miller with their eyes milky white. The sound followed. Uhh-hhuunnhh!
Alex groaned with frustration. “So those motherfuckers were infected?”
&nb
sp; Sheppard shook his head. His face showed a deep sadness, a palpable sense of regret. “No, not infected, you guys. Accelerated.”
So if we buy it tonight, Miller thought, we’ll turn, too…?
The sadness, the deep hunger, the pain of the two dead men in close proximity chewed into Miller’s tired brain. She struggled to block them out but failed. They were just too close.
Miller said, “Take them both off the board, Karl.”
Sheppard nodded. He raised his M-4 and squeezed off two quick, neat shots to the heads of the two newly minted zombies. Miller winced, for with each shot a feeling of close contact was lost. It was almost as if she had lost a part of herself.
“Talk to me, Karl.”
Sheppard confirmed her suspicions. “That was the reason I stopped working on the Enhanced Bioweapons project, and instead kept looking for the cure, in spite of Rubenstein’s game playing. I’m so sorry, Penny, Alex. If you’re accelerated when you die, you do become a zombie. You do so whether you got a shot of the toxic accelerant or not.”
“So that’s what the son-of-a-bitch wasn’t telling me,” said Miller. “He made me become one of them when I injected myself.”
“No, that wasn’t it, Penny,” said Sheppard, almost timidly.
Miller looked at Sheppard, wide eyed. “What do you mean, that wasn’t it? There’s something else? Something worse? Are you shitting me?”
“I’ll have to explain everything later.”
Alex said, “Explain now.”
Miller closed her eyes. “No, he’s right. We need to get Scratch.”
Before anyone else could speak, a loud clanking sound came from the end of the corridor. It began down where Rubenstein’s labs were located. An object skipped like a stone and rolled closer. All three of them looked down.
A grenade.
Miller was still too distracted by the fresh connection with the undead and that terrifying conversation about turning zombie. Before she could react, Alex had already picked the hot grenade up and hurled it back down the corridor. He had just enough time to join them behind cover. The grenade exploded.