“Over there,” Clay pointed. A door a few paces behind them stood wide-open, leading into one of the office rooms.
The two soldiers backtracked, stepping into the room, slamming the door closed, and locking the bolt. Without passing any words, the two men grabbed the large desk and slid it in front of the door.
“That should hold,” Gus said and huffed for air as he took off his gas mask and slung it to the floor.
Clay followed suit. Taking a small canteen from his hip, Clay took a deep pull before passing the bottle to Gus. “Man, you think they would make it a little easier to breathe in these things,” Clay said heaving for air, both hands on his knees.
It didn’t take long before the relentless banging began. The remaining ghouls in the hall found their way to the door.
“I can’t help but feel like I’ve been here before,” Gus said.
Ignoring the statement, Clay continued, “So, what are we supposed to do now?”
Gus leaned against the vibrating desk propped against the door, taking another drink from Clay’s canteen. “Ahh…” Wiping his lips and propping up and off of the desk, he handed the bottle back to Clay. “We wait.”
“Wait, what do you mean we wait?”
“For starters, if we’re going to have any chance against those things, we need to give the dust some time to settle out there. No sense in trying to fight a battle with our eyes closed. Second, we need to reload and wipe down our face shields. Mine is already too hard to—”
Clay suddenly interrupted, “Watts! We need to radio him.”
Gus brought the radio to his lips. “Blue Bravo, come in. Over.”
Nothing came back but static. Then, “What’s your status? Over.”
“Man, you had us scared for a minute. Thought you left us high and dry. Over.”
“Had you scared? I’m not the one blowing shit up. What the status? Over.”
Gus smiled at Clay as he clicked the receiver on the handset. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. We cleared the second and third floors. One more to go, but it is crawling with hostiles. Already took out a dozen or so. Still doing what we can to clear it. Over.”
After a moment, Watts clicked back on, “And the package?”
Gus sat waiting for him to continue, having not said Over at the end of his transmission. Both Clay and Gus made eye contact, and then shrugged simultaneously. Gus continued, “Not acquired. I’m beginning to think that we might not find this Grech guy. If we do, he’s probably a walking pus bag by now. Over”
A moan shrieked out. Both soldiers realized they had not yet cleared the room. Both men jumped up with rifles at the ready, but not before giving one another quick glances. Totally forgetting that both rifles were currently out of commission, the two men spread out to check the room.
As Gus crept toward a row of smaller desks, the radio rang out startling him.
“Roger that,” Watts said.
Gus jumped, grabbing the radio from his hip. “Check in later. Over and out.”
Hidden behind one of the desks, Clay closed in on the sound. It couldn’t be anything but a rotting corpse come back to life. They all sounded the same. The grunts and moans were unmistakable. Reaching over the edge of the desk as his head peered around its corner, Clay laid eyes on the monster. It was crunched up, obviously stuck in one place. He pulled the trigger. The rifle clicked. “Shit!”
The body moaned again, sounding more human than not.
Clay stared at the body for a few moments. “The skin… looks normal. Gus… Gus, we got a survivor over here!” Clay laid his M-4 on the desk and pulled out his pistol.
The woman was dressed in a lab coat like some of the others. The only difference with this one was that it wasn’t covered in blood and gore. The woman’s gaze met with Clay’s. “She’s in really bad shape.”
Gus joined Clay’s side, leaning over the defenseless woman. She was dehydrated and probably starving to death. Her lips were cracked and dry. She leaned forward trying to sit up, but was unable.
“It’s okay, Miss. We’re here to help,” Gus said, motioning for Clay to hand over his canteen.
The woman’s ID card clipped to her pocket read Level 4 Administrator and her name. Clay took the ID card and placed it in his pocket.
“Lilly, is that your name?” Gus asked as he wet her dry lips with water. “Is that your name, Lilly? I need you to try and sit up for me, okay?” With Clay’s assistance, the two men maneuvered the young lady into a sitting position.
There was no telling how long Lilly had holed up in this office without food or water, just trying to stay alive. Her skin was wrinkly and her eyes sunk back deep into each socket. The dark rings under her eyes gave her a ghoulish appearance. Her bright green eyes, obviously once breathtaking, seemed hauntingly eerie. They danced frantically around the room and back at the soldiers standing before her as she observed her situation. She was lucid, at least.
“Lilly, we need your help. How long have you been locked in here?” Gus asked.
She moved her mouth trying to form the words, her muscles straining to work. “Fo… fo… fo…”
Clay interrupted her trying to help. “Four days?” he asked, nodding his head.
She shook her head. “Fo… Foive… Five… Five days.”
“We need to get this one to a medic, and right away,” Clay said, standing to his feet and holstering his handgun.
Gus ignored the remark and the woman’s condition, making a clear point to stick to the mission. “Can you tell me, have you seen this man, Lilly?” He shoved a photo in front of her of Grech, the same photo that he had shown to Clay on the flight in. “This man. Have you seen this man? We need to find Grech Vonhinkly. Is he here?”
“Give it a rest, Gus. The woman is dying. Look at her,” Clay said.
Gus leapt to his feet. Bumping chest to chest with Clay, he was sure as hell going to get his point across. “Don’t ever talk to me in that tone, soldier. Don’t forget who’s in charge!” He peered over the younger man, breathing down the soldier’s neck.
The woman reached up. Pointing at the wall with a map, she began to mumble. “Ground Zero…” The dying woman’s voice barely broke past her own lips as she started to repeat herself once more, arm still raised.
“Wait, what’s she saying?” Clay asked.
Her arm fell to her side. Her head kicked back against the wall they had placed her against. Her eyes slowly closed.
“She was trying to tell us something.” Clay dropped to both knees by her side, palms on the carpet floor before him. “What? … Tell us again.”
Nothing.
“Come on, Lilly,” Clay leaned in close and put an ear to her mouth. “What, Lilly?” he said.
“Grechhh…” she said, and lifted her hand toward the map. She instantly slumped back over in the same position.
Clay leaned back and sat on his butt. “Hell, man. I think she just died.”
“Ground Zero…” she whispered.
“She said Ground Zero,” Clay said,
The two men’s eyes instantly met with the map hanging on the wall from across the room.
As Clay staggered to his feet, his gaze locked on the withered woman. “Man, we have to do something for her,” Clay said.
“You’re right,” Gus said. He took one long stride forward, pointing his 9mm, and pulling the trigger before Clay had a chance to react.
The shot rang out, sending a spray of blood against the wall behind the fallen woman. Her head hit the wall, then slowly slid down it to one side, leaving a blood-slicked trail behind. The woman finally stopped breathing as she came to rest on the floor.
Gus holstered the pistol like it was nothing and made his way toward the map.
“If I’m reading this correctly, Ground Zero is what they call the basement. There aren’t any steps leading down to it. The only way down is by this elevator,” Gus said in a mumble, mostly just thinking out loud as his hand pointed at a spot on the map.
&
nbsp; “Then the elevator it is,” Clay said.
DEFEND
1
Seated at the center of the well-lit lab, a short, chubby lab worker covered in the aroma of ripe cottage cheese sifted through the blood samples of the new arrivals. Examining the test results of each survivor one at a time, the lab assistant steadied his hand, pulling the plastic test tube from the Revco.
Each sample of blood held in the Revco was placed in small plastic tubes set upright in little cylinder racks. The ultra-low temperature freezer named Revco looked more like a small cooler than a refrigerator. These freezers always opened from the top and never from the side. This helped prevent any possible biohazard spills.
The particular blood sample he steadily pulled from the rack was sample number 12EM3. The letters stood for the patient’s initials. The first number was the sample number, then the tests administered, followed by test results received.
The frumpy little man eyed the sample number on the tube, jotting it down before setting the sample aside on the table, his white coat almost lost in the white room under the bright lights.
“This is all wrong,” he said and grumbled.
Behind him, Stately Christopher was prepping the microscope and reading the test space. Today, the scientist’s decided to see the effects in action. The idea was to place the blood from an uninfected host onto the tray and then introduce the blood of the later, that being the late Professor Taft’s. Once the two samples made contact, the agenda was in timing the total transfer of pure samples to the fungus, then test the newly infected with anticoagulants, hoping to in turn reverse the effects at the same metabolic rate.
“What’s not right this time, Benton?” Christopher huffed; he didn’t bother to turn and face the man seated behind him.
“This blood sample. Who was the last person to document this?” Benton asked.
“I was, why?” He lifted his head from the microscope, irritated to be stuck working with Captain Tight Ass, the cheese factory, Benton. It’s something every day with this one, he thought to himself dropping his face back toward the microscope, and then making slight adjustments on the spindle, bringing the contents below into focus.
Benton lifted a gloved hand, holding the frozen blood sample sealed away in the plastic test tube. “How can you have three possible test results on a sample that has only been tested on twice?”
“Let me see that,” he said and turned from his station to take a closer look.
As the lab assistant took the tube from Benton eyeing the mismarked label, Benton continued his rant, “If you’re the last one to have run the test, then I need to go over your entry for last night’s log. We don’t need to have you or anyone else mishandling or labeling these samples. What do you think this place is? A—”
Christopher shoved a finger in the smelly man’s pudgy face. “Look, just because Gibbs hasn’t made it in yet, doesn’t make you the doctor; you’re just another lab assistant, just like me.”
Keeping calm and adding a grin, Benton continued, “That doesn’t change the fact that I need to see last night’s log entry for the sample tests. All of them!” Benton set the 12EM3 on the table, putting out his latex glove covered hand, empty. With a raised brow, Benton shot his other hand in a fist, shoving it under his other arm to support his extended limb, palm up. His posture and facial expression suggested that he intended to wait there as long as it took. “Well?” he said.
Christopher shook his head, breathing a heavy sigh. “Why does it seem like I always get stuck with this guy?” He tossed his hands up in defeat. He quickly turned and shuffled through a folder for his notes.
Benton raised his head back and looked down his nose at Christopher.
Christopher knew Benton was right. As he looked up from the folder, unable to place where he had set the log entry, he caught the dreaded Benton boast of a smile from across the table.
Trying to play it off, Christopher glanced around the room at the counter tops for what might be his unwritten report. “Hmm… Now where in the world did I set that—?”
“Don’t play me for a fool, Christopher. We both know good and well that report never got filed. Which means that I’m going to have to backtrack over you and do everything myself. I just don’t understand how some people manage to—”
The door to the lab room swung open.
“Oh, hello, Lieutenant,” Christopher said and gave a polite smile and a wave, thankful for the sudden interruption on Benton’s high-horse rant that never got anyone anywhere.
*
“Hello, gentlemen,” Foster said as he stepped into the room, resting one hand on his hip holster.
From behind the desk, the two lab assistants looked up with eager eyes, curious about the unexpected visitor’s arrival.
Behind them, off to the right in the far corner of the room, a very undead and decomposed Professor Taft stood chained to the wall. The blood that stained the area around him was no longer a dark red, but had more of the appearance of tar. The blood, now totally dried out, a dark, thick black-colored resin, stuck to the floor and walls around the bound corpse. Fresh chunks of bloodied tissue and muscle lay scattered around the creature’s feet. The zombie had resorted to completely devouring a majority of its own arm. Its naturally carnal instinct to feed was so strong that it inevitably turned on itself for sustenance.
The thing that caught Foster as odd was that Taft seemed not at all concerned with the others in the room. It stood silently in the corner, occasionally shifting from one foot to the other and then back again. Other than that, nothing caught its interest, its gaze fixed on the floor below.
“What can we do for you, sir?” Benton asked, standing tall, but appearing to still be seated, his lower half hidden behind the table.
Finding it a little hard to take is eyes away from the pus-festering remains of a still-functioning Taft, Foster stumbled over his words, “I… I was just… just stopping by to speak with Dr. Gibbs,” he said, not stepping a single foot farther into the room, hand still clenching his holstered pistol.
Benton said, “It’s perfectly safe in here, Lieutenant.”
Foster suddenly realized that he had not taken his eyes off of Taft since entering the small lab. Diverting his focus, he cocked his head away, catching Benton’s gaze. Benton’s bulging eyes were magnified behind his thick frames and that beady little grin and chubby cheeks did absolutely nothing to reassure the Lieutenant otherwise.
“We haven’t seen her today, sir. She did have a meeting with the General first thing this morning. Something about the new arrivals, if I am correct. I would presume to believe that she is still in said meeting. You know how longwinded Baker can get,” Benton said.
Foster lightly smiled in agreement, then turned to leave the lab and the two men standing behind the table. Pulling the door open, he turned back and caught Christopher’s attention, addressing only him, “When she does come in, tell her that I came by, please.”
“Sure thing,” Christopher replied and gave another polite wave and smile as Foster exited.
*
Christopher quickly closed the folder and moved on to his appointed tasks, knowing good and well that the little man had the attention span of a gnat. It worked every time, the miscataloged blood sample test entry forgotten. He quickly learned from working with Benton, and others like him, that the really smart super nerds generally had way too much going on inside those heads of theirs to stay focused on the small details.
“You know… I heard that the Lieutenant and Dr. Gibbs were… well, you know.” Christopher chuckled, his eye cupped around the lens of the microscope to double check the setting.
It was as he left it, in just the right spot.
He leaned up, retrieving a needled syringe from the workspace directly next to the microscope. He lifted it to the light to inspect it briefly, and then turned to face Benton, who sat back in his chair prepping the blood sample.
Having done it a dozen times, he walked up to the re
animated zombie and filled the cylinder of the syringe with a small portion of the dead man’s blood and pus. He hadn’t liked the man to begin with; Taft had been a prude, one of those people that were never wrong. Ever! Kind of like Benton.
Pulling the partly filled syringe away from the undead man, he examined it once more in the light, before stepping away. Right there where he stood, the zombie, Taft, could reach up and just take hold of him if it wanted to. But for some reason, it never did. Normally, it was excited during this exercise. The close-range activity got the creature wound up. Something in the monster was changing, and they weren’t quite sure what that was. It was undoubtedly getting slower and the decomposition spread quicker through its body. But what?
“Oh, and where did you get that little slice of intel?” Benton inquired.
Walking back across the room to his test station, Christopher divulged his story about how one of the other assistants ran into them the other day in the hall. He explained how this individual mentioned a kiss and some touching. Besides that, wasn’t it obvious? They ate together every day in the cafeteria.
While still telling the tale, he turned to Benton, retrieving the 12EM3 that was now ready for the microscope. The small splotch of blood sat centered on a thin glass tray that Christopher slid under the microscope.
He then turned away, taking off his latex gloves, tossed them in the proper receptacle, and then thoroughly washed his hands. “Yep. I also heard from Trish that she watched Gibbs leaving the Lieutenant’s room in the barracks last night.”
“Oh really? And why would Trish have been in the men’s barracks? That seems highly unlikely,” Benton said, now peering down the scope to view the 12EM3 in action.
The blood was rapidly deteriorating. The white cells almost entirely dissolved and replaced by the nasty gray matter. The fungus swiftly started killing the fortified structural foundation of the blood cells, one piece at a time. The parasitoid fungus continued to grow as its mycelia invaded the host sample. “The decomposition rate is incredible. I’ve never seen any parasitoid organism move so fast. It’s moving at three times its normal speed.”
The End Page 18