by Brown, TW
“What?” Chad struggled against his bindings.
“Just ease down, dude,” Scott pressed on Chad’s shoulders more firmly. “That piece of garbage Mitch Rose is tied down…and in much worse condition than you thanks to Brett and a few others.”
There was a nugget of satisfaction growing in Chad’s belly, but that still didn’t explain why he was tied down, too. If they knew who the real culprit was, then why tie him down?
“You probably want to kill that guy, don’t you?” Scott looked into Chad’s eyes. He saw the answer that Chad could not conceal with mere silence. “That is why you are still tied up.”
“But that is my daughter—” he began.
“Yep,” Scott nodded, “and we saw what you did to the others. Nobody is sayin’ you ain’t right, but there is still a grip of folks who think like this is the old days. They want a trial and all that crap.”
“A trial?” Chad exploded. He quickly winced and even retched a little as the pain sent bright flashes across his vision.
“Don’t worry,” Scott said with a smile. “He has already been found guilty, and as soon as they pick the jury, it will be official.”
“Wha—” Chad tried to figure out what Scott meant, but at that moment the door burst open and his daughter rushed in.
“Daddy!” She ran to his bed and knelt beside him. She kissed his cheek and laid her head on his chest for a few seconds as she sobbed.
Finally she had cried herself out and sat up. Her gaze took in the bindings like she was seeing them for the first time. She glared at Scott. “Take these off…now.”
“Just relax, Ronni.” Scott stood up, patting the girl on the shoulder. “We will get your dad out in a few minutes. I want to do this on the up and up so the few bleeding hearts don’t get their panties in a bunch.” With that, he left the room.
“Like hell,” Ronni hissed. She produced a knife and made short work of the cords. “Everybody says you killed those guys…cut their throats.”
Chad wasn’t sure how to reply. It was true, but would his daughter see him as a monster for having killed men in cold blood? And how much had she been told? The killings were gruesome and violent. Would she be appalled at his ability to commit such violence? She had trouble with the killing of zombies.
“Yes.”
The word hung in the air for what seemed like forever to Chad. He sat up slowly, scooting back as he did, so that he wouldn’t crowd his daughter. He watched her face and tried to figure out what was going on behind those eyes.
“Thank you, daddy,” Ronni whispered and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.
Chad sat still, afraid that any movement on his part might break the spell and return them to the way things had been. He felt her shudder slightly and then heard her whimpers. Wrapping his own arms around his daughter, Chad held her. In that moment, he realized that was really the first time he’d been able to do so since he’d gotten out of prison. There had been a wall there that he couldn’t cross and she wouldn’t lower.
He felt his own eyes well with tears. When the door to his room opened, he couldn’t make out who it was at first. Finally, his friend Brett’s face came into focus.
“The jury has been picked,” Brett announced. “Scott wanted me to come warn you that there are a few people demanding that you stand trial for killing those guys as well.”
“What?” Chad and Ronni both exclaimed.
“Don’t worry,” Brett assured them. “It is a small number and once the details on that Mitch guy get out in the open, they’ll back off.”
“Are you sure?” Chad asked. He’d already had experience with the court system, and despite the rinky-dink nature of this one…trial was still trial and there was no such thing as a guarantee when it came to verdicts.
“Chad Meyers?” Two men stepped inside the room. One had a pistol in his hand; the other held a set of handcuffs. They took a look and immediately went on guard; it seems they expected him to still be tied to the bed. “You are under arrest for murder.”
***
“What have you done, Sam?” Darlene let the rubber glove snap into place on her left hand. Her eyes flicked over to the digital countdown. She would have exactly one hour before the chamber went into “sanitation” mode.
One of the chapters in the stacks of manuals they’d been given by whoever set up this little bunker complex detailed what the protocols were should some of the “test subjects” get loose. It was probably written with the optimistic point of view that the situation in the general population would be containable…eventually. Now, a few more zombies more or less made very little difference. Still, in one hour, gas would be pumped into the room and jets of flame would ignite the air. Basically, she would be incinerated along with everything in the lab.
She didn’t plan on taking longer than the hour. What she needed would take half that, tops. They’d used up their subject too quickly. The ten bodies kept alive on support systems had each been infected one way or the other in the first month. Of course, in their defense, none of the three scientists figured to be down in this bunker for longer than a month.
Scooping Samantha into her arms, she laid the woman down on the gurney and wheeled her into the lab. Pulling out her surgical kit, she laid everything on a tray and then rummaged through the drawer for the shears. With a few quick passes, a large patch of Samantha’s hair tumbled to the floor. She doused the area with hot water and took almost five minutes with a disposable blade to shave the stubble way, leaving a clean patch of pink scalp. A glance at the timer said she had fifty-two minutes.
Hooking up the monitors—she wanted to observe time of death at the precise moment—she looked at the clock when she picked up her scalpel. She now had forty-seven minutes. She realized it was going to be closer than she would like as she made the incision that allowed her to peel back the piece of skin and expose the actual skull.
With deft movements that had made her the envy of her colleagues, Darlene made a series of two Burr holes. What she was looking for was the black, syrupy hydrocephalus—otherwise known as the cerebrospinal fluid. This was the key in her mind. Her eyes made a pass over the monitors. There had been almost no change in Samantha’s condition.
“Why aren’t you dying?” Darlene whispered.
Donning her surgical glasses with the loupes magnifying lenses, she peered at the brain and fought to stifle a gasp. “You aren’t dying!”
Darlene cursed her bad luck while simultaneously celebrating that their colleague was going to be fine. She did another look to see if there might be any discoloration in the brain at all. Everything seemed fine and now she would have some explaining to do.
She thought it over as she cleaned Samantha up and administered a dose of propofol to keep her in a medically induced coma. Lena was certainly going to be angry. After all, Darlene had intentionally tricked her so that she could cut into their colleague. Perhaps she would be able to appeal to the woman’s scientific nature. As for Samantha, if she bitched one tiny bit, then the whole “self-administered” human testing thing would be her best defense.
Once she was satisfied that Samantha was in fact stable, she looked up at the clock and saw she still had eleven minutes. Flopping down in her plush captain’s chair at her desk, she opened her top drawer and felt around. There they were, in the very back where she kept them hidden. She’d told herself that she would not use this last one unless she was celebrating…or about to die.
Darlene pulled the slightly crumpled box out and fished the last cigarette from the pack. Placing it between her lips, she thumbed the wheel of the lighter and stared at the flame for a moment before lighting up. Taking that first deep inhale, she was greeted by that welcome nicotine rush. Not having smoked for several weeks, the sensation was amplified to a level she had not enjoyed in quite a while.
With four minutes left on the timer, she finally made her way to the sally port. She entered the code and opened the door. Stepping inside, she flipped open the pane
l and shut off the “Emergency Purge” command with the flick of a toggle. It all seemed so anti-climactic now.
It was in that moment that the larger picture dawned. Samantha had discovered a vaccination that prevented a person bitten by those things from joining the masses. It wasn’t a cure, but it would stop the spread. She remembered the image from the monitors and couldn’t keep from laughing.
A lot of good that would do now, she thought.
She activated the sterilization sequence and stood with her arms extended as the mist sprayed her skin. She shivered at its coldness. The ultra-violet lights came on and she waited until the chime sounded that indicated the process was over before she opened her eyes, removed goggles and respirator, and unlocked the door that would lead to the living quarters.
Lena was standing there waiting. Darlene didn’t even try to defend herself as she saw the fist coming for her face.
***
Slider removed the pillow and climbed off the corpse. The body of the mayor had finally gone still. As for the bimbo laying on her belly beside him, staring up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes that saw nothing, he’d have to do something to clean that mess up. That was one thing nobody had warned him of when he was first starting out—the convulsions and the shit.
Now that he was a seasoned veteran with over a hundred kills (of the assassination variety at least) he hardly noticed. Truth be told, he took a little pleasure when his female targets let go of their bowels. It was so vulgar, and for whatever reason, it usually made him chuckle like a schoolboy in a sex education class.
Looking around the room, he tried to decide if there might be anything that made a suitable trophy. His gaze settled on something glittery on the dresser. Heaving himself up and out of the chair, Slider walked over and stared down at the jeweled lighter. He picked it up, flipped open the top and thumbed the wheel. A tiny orange flame was his reward.
Pocketing the item, Slider went over and wrapped the body in the spare blanket he found in the hall closet, tossed it over his shoulder, and headed downstairs. On the way he passed the body of an elderly woman sprawled on the stairs. He’d hated killing that one. Servants seldom were treated well in any case; to have to kill one because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time was unfortunate.
He dumped the bimbo beside the door to the stairs leading into the cellar and returned for the housekeeper, or whatever the poor woman had been. She was so skinny and frail that he felt her bones digging into his shoulders as he carried her.
When he reached the stairs, he grabbed the lantern that hung just inside and, while keeping the body balanced on his shoulder, primed and lit the rusty Coleman. Holding it out in front of himself, he descended.
Even with the lantern’s pale orb of light, it was still chillingly dark in the cellar. Reaching the bottom step, he heard the moan and then the rattle of chains. Slider set the lantern down and waited for it to come into view.
The pathetic creature had been a girl of maybe sixteen. Her face was visible throughout the big house in literally dozens of pictures that hung on the wall. His best guess was that this had been the mayor’s daughter.
The zombie reached the end of its chain and strained so hard that the collar looked to be gouging into the flesh of her neck. Slider shoved the body of the housekeeper at the thing. It fell on it, but stopped short of actually taking a bite.
“Hmm,” Slider mused, “like your meat a little more fresh? Let’s see if this is any better.”
He hurried up the stairs and grabbed the bimbo. She was still warm…and stank like booze and feces. He hurried down and unceremoniously heaved the body at the feet of the chained monster. It seemed to pass muster and the zombie tore into the already dead girl that had been sharing the mayor’s bed.
Slider picked up the housekeeper along with the lantern and left the thing to its meal. When he reached the kitchen, he set the body down and rummaged through the drawers until he found what he was looking for. Closing the door to the cellar, he put the lock on and clicked it shut, pocketing the key. Not that it would matter. If somebody wanted to go down there, they most certainly would.
Heading out into the woods, Slider found an area thick with dead vegetation and fallen leaves. Two hours later, the woman was buried and Slider was walking down the road, returning to the military outpost and his tent.
As he passed down the road that cut through the middle of the cemetery and veered into the nearby woods that sat across from where the military had been allotted space by the “good citizens of Bald Knob”—as the mayor was always so fond of saying—he heard a low moan. One of the undead had managed to slip into town. It was rare that any got past the foot patrols, but the men of the 153rd could only be in so many places at a time.
Slider pulled his knife and went to investigate. It wouldn’t do to have one of those things just wandering the streets. His night vision still exceptional, it wasn’t long before it stumbled into view. Strange that one would be in the cemetery, considering that the place was surrounded by a heavy-duty fence insisted upon by the locals despite the fact that it had been made clear none of the undead had ever risen from graves like in some of the movies.
It finally arrived at the fence where Slider stood just out of reach. Hissing and moaning, it clawed at the air in a futile attempt to grasp the man just a few feet away.
A quick inspection revealed that this one was new; but there was so much more. She had been buried and still had muddy soil clinging to her body and hair. She was naked. She was young.
Slider was a man who trusted his gut. After plunging his knife into the creature’s head, he hopped the fence and took a look around. Sure enough, he eventually came across a section of ground that had been torn up.
“I guess if you wanted to dispose of a body in this backwoods town, the graveyard would be as good of a place as any,” he said out loud to himself.
If he were a gambling man, Slider guessed that this is where the mayor’s former floozies ended up after a fuck and a visit to the cellar. He couldn’t do it often or people would get suspicious.
As he reached his tent, Chuck “Slider” Monterro was feeling pretty damn good about the job he’d done. Now it was time for a good four hours of sleep, and then he would pay a visit to Sergeant Jody Rafe.
15
Geeks, Doctors, and Snow
“We have at least a dozen miles to get close to town,” Kevin said as the pair dragged the zombie they’d just taken down to the side of the driveway.
“If I can get that snowmobile running,” Peter insisted, “then we cut our travel time down considerably.”
Kevin liked the idea of a shorter trip, but he also felt that there was a point where the noise trade off became an issue. He didn’t want to fight of hundreds of zombies on the way back if they ended up with a bunch on their tail. One thing he knew about a snowmobile; they were loud. Still, it was a given that this trip would be impossible on foot.
The garage door stuck a bit as they raised it, but eventually it broke free and they were staring at a big Polaris two-seater. Peter whistled appreciatively as they entered the garage. He started right in on giving the vehicle an inspection. After about five minutes where Kevin simply stood watching the snow fall in between peeks at whatever it was that Peter was doing, the vehicle started with a sputter and then a roar that seemed deafening to Kevin.
It was no surprise that several undead came out of the shadows all up and down the street. Also, many of the surrounding houses that had zombies trapped inside now had its occupants pressed against various windows.
“Hop on,” Peter said as he gave the throttle a little rev.
Kevin wasn’t thrilled about riding behind the doctor and having to wrap his arms around the man’s waist, but he would make do with the situation at hand. He swung a leg over and instinctively tightened his hold when the snowmobile lurched forward and shot out of the garage.
As they turned onto the road, Peter let off the throttle so they could converse
without having to yell at the top of their lungs. “You just guide me, Kevin and I will get us there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
They were on Highway 16-Newark Expressway in almost no time and headed west. Kevin couldn’t help but take in the destruction with a bit of awe. When they’d been running for the country club, they really hadn’t been looking around. Now, he was able to take it all in. Large areas consumed by fires left the landscape looking skeletal. Instead of buildings in some places, there were spires standing as the last vestige of a home or business.
Abandoned vehicles remained in singles and clusters, all buried under the two or three feet of snow that covered the ground. There was something about the landscape that was beautiful, yet terrifying. It took him a few minutes to realize that he hadn’t seen a single zombie since they’d left that neighborhood behind. It also struck him that he did recall seeing many of the cars that they’d passed when running from Newark and Heath with undead occupants. He wondered what they might look like now. Were they frozen solid? And if so, what would happen in the spring or at the first thaw. He had a brief fantasy about all the zombies melting like the witch at the end of The Wizard of Oz.
He’d become so engrossed in the scenery that it took him a few seconds to realize that they were slowing. He craned his neck around to look forward. A wall of various cars, trucks and eighteen-wheelers were blocking the highway. This was no ordinary traffic snarl. For one, it hadn’t been there a few months ago. And second, the vehicles had been parked sideways and seemingly crashed into—or driven on top of—each other.
“What now?” Peter asked over his shoulder.
“Well,” Kevin looked around the area, “I’d say we take a look. Maybe a few of Shaw’s men survived. If my guess is correct, The Basket is just a few miles up the road.” Shaw had been a militant leader bent on creating some sort of warrior society. As was the case in so many other attempts at the same thing in history…it had failed.