The Zombie Plagues (Book 2)

by Sweet, Dell

  Alice shut down the car and walked around to the back, looking in all directions, trying not be obvious as she did it: There was no one around.

  The sexual relationship with Weston had simply happened. Another moral flexibility she had acquired in service to her country. Sometimes sex was also part of the job if you were a woman. An asset was an asset. Weston was not unattractive, but it hardly mattered. What did mater was that he found her desirable.

  She had been summoned to General Wesley Lee's office twice now: Both times under the guise of monthly training that was required for her security level. Not even Weston knew who his real boss was, but she did.

  The first time had been two years before, just weeks after she had started her new job; the last just a few weeks before. The General had not known what was missing; he had simply called her in to encourage her to see the job to the end. That end was coming fast, he had told her. Nothing more. Just a pep talk, she had decided, to keep her in the loop. It had been so long at that point since she had seen him that she had begun to wonder if she was still working for the General at all. The summons had solved that issue completely.

  She keyed the trunk lock and the lid rose slowly.

  There was an end to her time with Major Weston. It was coming soon. The General hadn't been more specific, but he hadn't needed to be, she had already known. Maybe more than the General himself did, and Alice was not the sort of soldier to question orders from the chain of command. She had briefly wondered if it meant she would need to terminate Major Weston herself: If it was required, she would. She saw no real problem with it. The question in her mind was what might be next.

  She looked down into the trunk. Smith had been easy. Bluechip was a small facility. Even with Drum nearby it was under its own command, not a sub command of the nearby base. There were a few hundred soldiers assigned there, and they all tended to socialize with each other, shunning the soldiers from the nearby base. If asked she would not have been able to put the reasons for that into words. Pride: A sense of place in the scheme of things? The elevation that the sense of working on something apart: Something special, afforded you? It was all of those things and more. And she knew, even when most of those who worked at the facility didn't know, what was so special about Bluechip. Every problem she took care of knew something. And every one of those problems had given up their information before she had allowed them to die.

  Two weeks before it had been a reporter from Syracuse. He had gotten a little too close: Spooked Weston. Weston had put her on him. She had taken him out after meeting him in a bar. Men could be so easy like that. He had followed her back to what he thought was her hotel room for a fun time. It was her hotel room, but rented only to do a job. A few hours later he had gone out to her car in her luggage. The next afternoon he had come here.

  She knew about the meteor DX2379R. She knew it would probably hit instead of miss: And if it did miss it would not be by enough to matter at all. She knew all about project Bluechip's real underlying mission, development of the SS-V2765 virus. She knew what it had been developed to do, and she knew all the problems that the General did not know about: She knew what it did do. She knew how Gabe Kohlson had been able to smuggle it out of the facility. She knew that the new Challenger he had been driving should have been a big tip off to Weston, but somehow he had overlooked it. She knew how he had sold the idea of stealing it to a local bookie he had been in deep with.

  A drug developed to allow soldiers to live longer in combat, it had an unforeseen benefit. It would not allow you to die: You could live forever. She was sure he had downplayed just exactly how that second life would be lived.

  The bookie, she assumed, had passed the message on quietly: Was it worth the relief of a five thousand dollar debt? Ten thousand? Whatever it had been that Gabe Kohlson's gambling habit had racked up, it had been wiped out and there had been at least enough left over for the Challenger: Whoever held the real reigns on those debts had forgiven it. Kohlson had delivered and then, somehow the whole thing had gone bad.

  Jimmy West worked for that person, whoever it was: If forced to guess, she would say Tommy Murphy. He was the biggest and the baddest: The most likely to be able to capitalize on information and a product like that.

  She didn't like to guess though, and that part of it had nothing to do with her at all. The truth was that even though Weston could not see it, it didn't even matter. The end was coming. If the General pulled the plug first or the meteor hit, or the scientists were right and even a close pass by that meteor would set off a sequence of destruction that would end society as they knew it: It didn't matter. It was over already, one way or the other; just nobody was lying down yet. Nobody was calling it quits yet. Her included, so, she supposed she was no better than Weston or the General for that matter.

  She looked down into the trunk at the bundled and bagged remains of Sergeant Smith, lately of the Quartermasters office at Bluechip.

  He had met her on one of those back roads. It was a good place to meet even when there were maneuvers going on, and there had been.

  Maneuvers meant gunfire, even live rounds. The whole area was off limits during maneuvers and training sessions, but she could have cared less about that. He had met her in a small clearing just off a one lane blacktop that had been chewed to bits over the years by tank treads, on the promise that she needed to show him something very important. She had taken him around to the trunk. He had been eager. The lid had risen to a plastic lined interior and she had shot him twice in the temple as the puzzled look had still been riding on his face. There had been no need to question him: There was nothing he knew that she needed to know: He had simply been unfortunate enough to be the author of the report listing the missing virus.

  A camouflaged rain suit had slipped right over her uniform, and she had gone to work with an ax and a sharp knife that had been lying on the floor of the trunk waiting. By early afternoon the bagged remains had been resting in her trunk and she had been on her way to the transfer station.

  She reached down, hefted the first bag out of the trunk and launched it into the huge steel container. Five minutes later she was finished and had paid her dumping fee as she left, smiling up at the woman in the office as she passed over the scales and drove out the gate.

  Cleveland Ohio

  Billy Jingo

  The tire came apart on highway 90 just outside Cleveland Ohio. It took Billy most of an hour to get the space saver spare on and then get the Jeep back onto the ground. He drove off the interstate and into Cleveland. It took some turning around, but he finally made it onto a feeder strip that took him out and around the city. They stopped at a burger place, already sick of cold food; picked up lunch and then Billy pulled into a mall parking lot and April went to work on him.

  She put Ben Neo's driver's license next to his own face and then started with the hair. She used a razor to take Billy's hairline back to match Ben Neo's own receding hairline. She used the eye shadow to make the skin under his eyes look a little baggier. And she bought a cheap pair of plastic reading glasses in a mall store that looks similar to Neo's glasses. She combed his hair straight back and into a small ponytail at the base of his skull and examined her work. A little more eye shadow under his chin, just below his lip, made his chin seem bigger. She looked him over.

  "It's pretty good," she said at last.

  "Yeah?" Billy asked. She handed him the mirror.

  "Whoa," he said, looking side to side in the mirror. "It doesn't even look like me."

  "It's not supposed to. You look really good. You look a lot like him... We're gonna do it now?" April asked.

  "We may as well," Billy said. "We had to stop, so we may as well. We'd just have to do it later anyway," he said.

  They drove to the first dealership they saw: If this one didn't work out the road was crowded with them farther down.

  Billy found a used Chevy SUV: Low miles, big price tag, but in a city this size he didn't think anyone would scoff at a large ca
sh transaction.

  He spotted the salesman as the salesman spotted him.

  "Ray," the salesman told him as he walked up and offered his hand.

  "Ben," Billy told him. He shook his hand and then turned back to the SUV.

  "Nice truck,” Ray told him, launching straight into his spiel. “Best on the lot. Close to new. In fact the only way I could do better for you would be to sell you a new one." Ray smiled.

  "I don't know about that," Billy said. “I don't know if I have the credit for something like that."

  "Easy enough to find out. I can run it in just a few minutes," Ray told him. He turned back to the dealership as if he really could just walk back and retrieve Benjamin Neo's information. Like it was sitting on his desk just waiting for him to come and get it. He turned back and smiled at Billy, and then turned once more; his eyes urging Billy on.

  "Really?" Billy asked.

  "Really... Let me go see. Find out where you stand. Go and look around... The new trucks are over on the other side. Go take a look, I'll be right back." He left with Ben Neo's driver's license and social security number he had jotted down on a small pad he carried in his shirt pocket. Probably for just that sort of thing too, Billy thought. Maybe it was as simple as a quick walk back inside. Maybe it was very nearly sitting on his desktop, or would be soon enough. So soon that it wouldn't matter that it hadn't been.

  Billy walked around the lot and looked at some new vehicles. He would've liked to walk over and talk with April where she had parked in the Burger Joint lot next door, but they had decided not to be seen together just in case. The salesman came back just a few minutes later.

  "Ben. I see no problem. You paid off the house on Lake Avenue?" he asked.

  "Yes, yes I did," Billy said, hoping it was true.

  "So your credit report is good right now. Nothing outstanding except your other car, the Ford Taurus. And that's almost paid off... Same employer?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Billy said, "same. Guess I don't change too much."

  "And that is why your credit rating is so good and your score is so high. What exactly were you looking for?" Ray asked him.

  "Well I'm looking for something four wheel drive. That's why I looked at the blazer. I'm going to do some traveling. I'm going all the way out to California to look at property," Billy lied. "Maybe I'll be spending a little time on the desert too while I'm there."

  "Have you thought GMC Suburban? It's a bigger vehicle, but so much nicer. Let me show you one. I ordered it special: Captain’s chairs, dual AC, and then the guy couldn't make the loan happen. This truck is nice, Ben, very nice," Ray said.

  Ray sold him on the GMC. He also lined him up with a local agent who took cash and wrote an insurance policy for the truck. The loan was approved with no problem. Billy had been prepared to put several thousand dollars down, but Ray had told him with all the incentives and rebates he wouldn't have to put any of his own money down at all.

  Two hours after he had pulled onto the lot he drove the suburban off the lot, licensed, insured and with a full tank of gas. They unloaded the commander; locked it up and left it sitting in the mall parking lot, the keys resting on the top of the roof like the owner had forgotten them.

  April took over the driving, enjoying the way the big suburban felt on the highway.

  Rochester New York

  Jimmy West

  "Yeah?" Jimmy said. He held the cell phone to his ear, the other hand on the steering wheel.

  Tommy," Tommy Murphy said in his ear. "I got a little tip. A guy I know down in Florida gets a call from a small time drug dealer up in Watertown: Wants to know if he can handle a large amount of coke and heroin that is about to be southbound. Says to my friend, he can make it come right to him. My friend says he's a little overextended right now. He doesn't want to spook the guy, you see? Hangs up, calls me. What I want for you to do is go back there and talk to the other guy... Richard Dean... Rich to his friends... He thinks he's something too. Even has a couple bodyguards," Tommy laughed.

  Jimmy joined him. "On my way and Neo's place is taken care of. I had to clean up a little mess across the street. Couldn't be avoided," Jimmy said. “Got hot just as I was leaving, but I left nothing.”

  "I appreciate that, Jimmy," Tommy said. He gave Jimmy the address for Richard Dean. "You're on your way?" he asked.

  "I'm on my way," Jimmy said and clicked off.

  He had just taken care of the stuff from Neo's house: He pointed the car back toward route three and Watertown, set the cruise control and settled back into the seat.

  Watertown New York

  Sammy and Don

  "If we were in a bigger city we wouldn't have to wait for so much," Don said.

  Sammy nodded.

  The tall brunette walked back from the front dispatch office and looked at Don. "April Evans?" she asked.

  "Yeah?" he said.

  "She bought a car in Rochester yesterday. It's on the DMV Computer. Must have just got in before the close of business yesterday," she told him. "Late model Jeep Commander," she said. She read off the license number as she handed the printout to Don.

  "Jenny?" Don asked. "How fast can you get this out?" he looked at her.

  "I'm off in ten minutes." She sighed... "Okay... About twenty minutes. I'll do it before I go," she smiled. "You owe me, Donnie, right?" she teased. She swung her hips and walked back out of the room.

  "Lucky bastard," Sammy said.

  Don laughed. "Hey, things are looking up. You call Rochester city, I'll call the sheriff's department. Maybe someone spotted it."

  They both picked up phones and went to work.

  Watertown New York

  Saturday Night

  Jimmy West

  Jimmy had parked his car two blocks away and walked. He hadn't liked it, but he had, had no choice. He had now been watching the place for over an hour. Two bodyguards, girlfriend: An anorexic crack head with silicone implants. Two kids from another woman, not his ex-wife. A couple of phone calls had supplied him with names and everything else he had needed to know.

  He had watched the girlfriend come and go, same with the two kids: The bodyguards, big, beefy dumb looking bastards, passing by the hallway windows that lead from the garage as they let people in and out. There had been five or six small drug deals, or what he assumed were drug deals: The car pulled into the drive, the garage door rose of its own accord; the car drove in and the door came down. A few moments later out came the car again: The body guards moved back through the hallway. Currently the girlfriend and the kids were in the house.

  The garage seemed to be the preferred entrance into the house. He had seen no one use the actual front door of the place. This guy had to be the dumbest bastard he'd ever seen. Everything right there to make him talk.

  He'd seen two big pickups so far too: People that worked for Richard Dean. They had driven straight into the garage too, just a faster in and out, like the stuff was right there waiting for them. He had moved over to the door and waited in the shrubbery: Hidden in the expensive looking hedges; another dumb move on this bozos part, or his security: You never planted shrubbery that close to the house or doorway. Somebody had fucked up, but it would work out well for him.

  He didn't wait long: The next car came, the door went up and Jimmy rolled under the door as it was on its way back down, ending up right behind the new Camaro rag-top that had pulled in. A long legged black girl got out of the car and started up the steps that lead into the house. Jimmy took a couple of fast strides and ended up beside her.

  "Sorry, honey," he said as he shot her in the back of the head with the silenced 9 mm. He caught her and eased her to the floor. "Better for you," he told her. "Believe me, much better." He took three deep breaths and then tested the doorknob... Unlocked. He paused, flexed his legs, and then burst through the door.

  Both bodyguards were standing, arms folded, chatting with Richard Dean's teenage daughter he had spotted going into the house earlier. He shot both bodyguards before t
hey could move, and then punched the girl hard, knocking her out. Richard Dean himself came running to see what the excitement was about.

  He tried to play it tough.

  "Do you know who I am?" Richard Dean asked.

  "A fuckin' dead guy if you don't shut the fuck up," Jimmy said. He put the gun barrel to his head. "Pick up your daughter. Where is everyone else?”

  "Elsie is in the shower... The shower... Ja... Jamie is upstairs in her rrr room," he managed at last.

  “Pick her up now," Jimmy told him, motioning at the unconscious girl where she lay blocking the hallway. Richard bent down and picked up Denise and carried her into the living room. Twenty minutes later Jimmy had the three women in the exercise room, just off the living area, tied up. He was tying up Richard Dean.

  Richard Dean had let him kill his girlfriend. He wouldn't say anything. And he waited until Jimmy had started in on his youngest daughter before he'd wanted to talk. Frantic beneath his gag, but he had pissed Jimmy off, so Jimmy had kept on a few minutes before he had stopped.

  He had gotten it all: Cell number the kids would call back to, where they were heading. Who they would meet and the rest that was planned. After he was done talking and it was time for Jimmy to turn him and his daughters loose as he had promised, Jimmy had broken the bad news to him by gagging him and finishing off his daughters in front of him: A bullet in the head for each of them. He saved Richard for last. “That's for making me wait," Jimmy told him as he slit his throat.

  It had been impossible to stay out of the blood, so he helped himself to a shower and some of Richard Dean's clothes. Not exactly his style, but a good fit anyway. He went back out to the garage, and looked at the Camaro once again. Nice fuckin' car, he told himself. He turned, slipped out the side door of the garage, locking the handle set and then shutting the door. He walked calmly down the street.

  When he got to the corner of the street where he had left his car, he saw a cop car sitting in the shadows halfway down the block: Waiting silently in the dark... Watching his car? Probably, he had told himself, but it made no difference if it was there for some totally unrelated problem. There was no way that Jimmy would be heading back to that car ever.