CURE (A Strandville Zombie Novel)

by Frisch, Belinda

  What stinks?

  She found a flashlight on a utility shelf and turned it on.

  The room was hot and the smell burned her nose and throat. She cupped her hand over her face, taking shallow breaths, and held in the urge to cough.

  A medical waste incinerator roared and the flames gave off a radiant heat that sent Miranda into a full-on sweat. She pressed her ear to the door and listened. The hall was silent. She slipped out of the open-backed gown and put on the scrubs. The increasing heat combined with borderline dehydration made her head spin. She fanned her shirt up and down in an attempt at cooling herself, but the movement only made things worse. The room spun and she grabbed the lip of one of the three covered carts parked in front of the incinerator for stability.

  What the hell?

  Her hand landed in congealed gelatin. She shined the flashlight to see what it was. Sticky strands like molten red glass or melted cinnamon candy stretched into threads. She wiped her palm clean on the discarded hospital gown and recognized the gore as clotted blood and something like mucus.

  No, please. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying. What if it was Annie’s blood? She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something awful had happened to her.

  Terrified, she didn’t want to look at what was in the cart, but knew she had to.

  Her heart hammered as she peeled back the corner of the fitted, plastic sheet. The rancid stench magnified. A bilious liquid rocketed up her throat and she doubled-over letting the bitter fluid spill down her chin onto the floor.

  She wanted to scream, to run, to pretend she hadn’t seen what was inside, but it was burned so deep into her already damaged psyche that she knew she’d never forget it.

  A half dozen or more tiny beings covered the rotting bodies of the mutilated women piled into the cart. Not quite babies, the necrotic beings could have been if they were fully formed. Their distorted faces were almost human except for the tiny milk teeth that jutted from their peeled back lips.

  She let go of the cart and closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. She held her hand to her stomach and suddenly feared what Nixon implanted inside of her.

  Her hopes for a healthy infant turned to dread of delivering a monster.

  It’ll never make it, she told herself.

  Suddenly, she needed the doctors to be right.

  * * * * *

  This is your fault.

  Travis’s words echoed in Zach’s head as he reluctantly drove away from the Nixon Center. His unauthorized departure wasn’t without risk, but he couldn’t stand the tense silence in the Control Room. The angst of Travis losing his dear friend. The images of Clarence clawing his skin, gnashing his teeth, and giving in to the infection wouldn’t get out of his head.

  Nixon held power over men who were larger and stronger than he was, mostly out of fear, Zach figured. Zach wasn’t afraid, he was worried for Allison. Nixon knew she was his weakness. He clutched his cell phone in the breast pocket of his uniform shirt, and armed with the video of the women in the ward, set out to find help.

  He couldn’t take on Nixon alone.

  Miranda’s address hadn’t been hard to locate and Zach was thankful to have gotten to her file before Nixon became suspicious of him. Scott Penton was his last hope. Zach parked in the driveway of the small, two-family house and noted the silver H2 pulled off the side of the road. In a town as small as Strandville, a vehicle like that stood out. He surveyed the outdated house and noticed that the front door of the ground floor apartment was ajar.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” He jumped when a marmalade-colored tabby pushed between his slightly parted legs. “I’m letting your cat in.” He opened the screen door. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

  No sooner did his boot hit the linoleum foyer floor than the cold muzzle of a gun pressed firmly into the back of his head.

  “Don’t you fucking move!”

  Zach’s assailant came from behind the interior door, the first place he should have checked given the circumstances. He raised his hands in surrender and steadied his nervous breath.

  “Listen,” Zach said unable to lay eyes on whoever had him at gunpoint. “I’m looking for the landlord, that’s all. I’m a friend of her tenant’s.” The metal settled into the tiny indent where his spine met his skull.

  “How do you know Miranda?”

  Zach turned to look over his shoulder and the gun pressed harder into him.

  The steady, but angry male voice continued. “Without turning around, I want to see your I.D. I also want you to think very carefully before lying to me. What do you want with my wife?”

  Zach reached slowly into his back pocket, opened his wallet so that his license was showing, and passed it to the man behind him. His wife? He smirked at the coincidence. The person he was looking for had him at gunpoint. “You’re Miranda’s ex. Scott Penton, right? I came here hoping to find a way to contact you.”

  “And why would you do that?” Scott asked.

  “Because Miranda’s in trouble.” Zach tried to come up with a logical explanation for the infection and the experiment, but nothing sounded reasonable.

  “And you care why?”

  Zach drew a deep breath. “Because Nixon has my wife, too. I need your help.” He could only hope with him wearing a Nixon Center security uniform that Scott would believe him.

  “How do I know you aren’t part of this?”

  “Part of what?”

  Scott grabbed Zach by the collar and shoved him toward a small master bedroom at the rear of the first floor apartment. Zach struggled to breathe as the cotton tightened on his neck.

  Holy shit. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  An old woman’s frail body splayed out across the country roses bedspread. The deep cut through her throat almost decapitated her. Arterial blood spray painted the delicate pink walls and the white lace curtains. Blood soaked the bed and had run down the comforter on to the beige carpet. Her anguished expression, frozen in death, and the multitude of bruises said her end wasn’t as quick and clean as it could have been.

  Trademark Max Reid.

  Scott pushed Zach into the bedroom and he stumbled, careful to avoid touching anything.

  “Look like Nixon’s handiwork to you?”

  Zach shrugged. “I don’t put it past him, but why would he have an old woman killed?”

  “Because when Miranda went missing, she’s the one who called me.”

  23.

  Reid turned the basement upside down and two hours later, still hadn’t found Miranda. It was time for payback. He strung Miguel, the young orderly, up in the incinerator room. He bound his hands over his head with a length of coarse rope and hung him from the sturdy pipes in the ceiling.

  “Why would you leave the door open?” He drove his knife between Miguel’s ribs, one after the other in sequence, until the green scrub shirt was stained red. Air whistled out of a wound on the right and Reid knew he had punctured a lung.

  Miguel howled, and though Reid didn’t speak Spanish, the words were clearly a plea for his life.

  Yes, this is what he needed.

  The frustration of hunting Miranda melted away. The peace of the impending kill sent Nixon’s disappointment and anger into the background.

  Reid ran his razor-sharp blade down Miguel’s shirt and flayed it open. Gashes dotted Miguel’s bald, tan chest. A gold rope chain with a crucifix hung around his neck. Reid inserted the tip of his knife into one of the smaller holes and twisted it, increasing the blood flow. “Did you see which way the chica went?” He cocked his head to the side.

  “No hablo Ingles.” A red mist sprayed from Miguel’s mouth.

  “Don’t give me that shit! Talk!” Reid dealt a sharp blow to Miguel’s cheek, caving the bone near his eye. Reid grinned at the shattering crunch.

  Miguel’s body dangled, the ropes groaning under the strain of his weight. Blood pooled on the plastic sheeting beneath him. This time, when his eyes closed, they didn’t
reopen.

  “You’ll look at me when I’m talking to you.” Reid snatched a roll of duct tape from the utility shelf, peeled two small strips, and taped Miguel’s lids up.

  “Which way did she go?” Reid drove his knife, up to the hilt, into Miguel’s chest.

  A weak groan escaped him.

  He was all but dead.

  With no fear left in his victim to fuel his attack, Reid grabbed a handful of Miguel’s dark hair and pulled his head back.

  “Mistakes have consequences.”

  He drew the blade across the young orderly’s throat and watched his body convulse until it went still. The rope chain settled into the wound and the crucifix disappeared under the blood.

  Reid stepped off the drop cloth to avoid the final spill. Leave no evidence. Nixon had been clear. He waited for the adrenaline rush to pass before starting the cleanup, having learned from his previous mistakes. He pushed aside the medical waste cart, fired up the incinerator, and moved to open the door, kicking something wadded up on the floor. A discarded hospital gown. He spread it out and found a small, bloody handprint smeared on the front. Miranda. He’d been in that room a dozen times before stringing up Miguel. How did he miss her?

  The overhead ductwork creaked and he smiled.

  Maybe he hadn’t.

  * * * * *

  Scott pulled up fifteen minutes early to the address on the scrap of paper Billy had given him. A sliver of moon peeked out from behind a cluster of gathering storm clouds and lit the muddy driveway. Loose gravel caught in the tires and kicked up against the side of the Hummer.

  Scott drove around to the only clearing in a field of tall grass and parked. Several old pick-up trucks and a rusted, behemoth of a van obscured his view of the small cabin.

  “Can you trust this kid?” Zach asked from the back seat. “I mean, how do you know he’s not part of what’s going on around here?”

  “His sister is missing, too. Believe me, he’s hurting.”

  “Are you sure that isn’t just from the beatings Reid gave the two of you?”

  A rapping of knuckles came at the tinted, driver’s side window.

  “It’s Billy,” Scott said. “Get down.”

  Zach shimmied to the floor and settled in face down, though his broad shoulders barely fit.

  Scott stepped out, careful to block Billy’s view of the back seat. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Billy said and pushed his flop of bangs from in front of his red eyes. “We need ta talk before ya go in there.”

  Billy was either stoned or had been crying. Scott didn’t ask which. “Ok, so talk.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t welcome.

  A man pressed his face to the front door window.

  “Problem is, I’m not supposed ta tell anyone we’re, ya know, planning on getting into the Center again. The other guys don’t trust you. I told ‘em about your wife, but some of ‘em think ya might’ve been sent here…by Nixon. Looking like ya do won’t help that, neither.”

  “What do I look like other than a guy who’s had the shit beat out of him?”

  “Military, like Nixon’s security thugs.”

  “I am military, but I have nothing to do with Nixon.”

  “It ain’t me ya hafta convice.”

  A middle-aged man in a stained tank top and paint-splattered jeans stepped through the shanty’s creaking front door and headed in their direction. His unshaven face and ruddy complexion combined with the thick smell of whiskey gave him away as an all-day drunk. His curled upper lip said he was a mean one.

  “I tol’ you not to bring ‘im here.” The man shoved Billy and knocked him off his footing.

  Billy landed in the mud and held his hands up protectively. “We need ‘im, Lenny.”

  Scott stepped in between Lenny and Billy. “Hey, take it easy.” Convincing this group to help him was going to be harder than he expected.

  Billy stood up and wiped his palms on his jeans. “If ya want Annie back, Len, you’ll listen.”

  “Listen? To an outsider?” Lenny planted a firm kick in the Hummer’s driver’s side door.

  Scott shoved him out of the way before he could get in another one. “Get away from my truck, you asshole.”

  “City, that ain’t no truck.” Lenny turned to Billy. “This guy is one of Nixon’s goons if ever I saw one.” He pointed an accusing finger.

  A group of men ranging from late-teens to mid-sixties appeared from the shadows. One had his grip choked-up on a weathered, wooden baseball bat, another on a crow bar. Scott scanned for guns--sure that one of them had one. The man at the back of the pack held a 0.22 against his leg. He thought of his own pistol in its case in the truck. He hadn’t holstered it to avoid making Billy uneasy, but between this and his run-in with Reid at the center, it was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  The group pressed closer until the largest of the men pinned Scott to the front door of the Hummer. Don’t raise a hand. He could’ve fought back, but the idea was to win them over and they significantly outnumbered him.

  “I’m not one of them,” Scott said.

  Zach climbed out of the back seat still wearing his Nixon Center uniform. “He isn’t, but I am.” He aimed a pistol at the crowd.

  Billy’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide. “What in the hell?”

  Scott held up his hand. “Listen, it’s not what you think. Let me explain.”

  Zach sighted up on the man pressing his arm into Scott’s chest. “Let him go.”

  No response.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m here for help, too. I said let him go.” He pulled back the slide.

  Billy nodded. “Do it, Kurt,” he said. “Hear ‘im out.”

  The man stepped away.

  “The rest of you, back up.” Zach pushed a couple of buttons and held out his phone.

  A grainy video appeared on the screen and the image of a woman lying motionless in a hospital bed caught Billy’s attention.

  “Amy?” He tried to grab it, but Zach held on.

  “No you don’t,” he said. “This stays with me.”

  “How am I supposed to see what’s goin’ on in there? Is she all right?” Billy scratched his head.

  “Take it for what it is, proof that she’s alive and that we’re telling the truth.”

  A tear rolled down Billy’s cratered cheek. “Where’s she?”

  “In the basement of the Nixon Center.”

  The view changed moving from Amy to Carlene, who held her hand over her only slightly swollen belly. The man holding Scott against the Hummer lowered his eyes. “That’s my daughter,” he said.

  The oldest of the men stepped up and patted Kurt’s shoulder. “I didn’t know Carlene was pregnant.”

  Kurt shook his head, despondent, and let off of Scott. “She wasn’t.”

  The video played out and Zach dropped his arm to his side. “Nixon has my wife, too. She’s sick and has to get out of there, but I need your help. I know the center well enough, I can lead you to the women, but Nixon won’t let them go without a fight. You all lost someone. Why else would you be here? Now that you know, for sure, that Nixon’s behind it, how far will you go to get them back?”

  24.

  Nixon stared out his office window at the storm bearing down. He drew a slow, controlled breath, working to calm his nerves. Reid would have to pay, somehow, for Miranda’s escape. For reassigning an immigrant orderly to care for his most valued subject. A plan began to formulate, one he wouldn’t set in motion until after Miranda was returned. The experiment’s outcome hinged on finding her, and so far, they were no closer. Nixon forced his shoulders down hoping to stave off the headache affecting his ability to think.

  Miranda escaping wasn’t his only problem.

  Zach was now missing, too, and cooperating with Miranda for all he knew.

  A knock came at his partially open door.

  “Dr. Nixon.” Lois, his matronly secretary, peeked from behind it.

  “What
is it, Lois?”

  “Max Reid is on the phone for you.”

  Nixon pressed the flashing button and picked up the call. “Please tell me you found them both.” He didn’t bother with a greeting.

  “No, sir. No sign of either of them, but I have the gate guard watching for Zach. When he shows up, I’ll let you know immediately.”

  Nixon knew Zach would come back, it was a matter of when. “Have Foster review the lot security feeds. I need to know how long ago Zach left and who, if anyone, was with him. For your sake, it better not be Miranda Penton.” Nixon slammed down the handset and massaged his throbbing temples. He hired Zach for his tactical military background and his marksmanship. These were not qualities he wanted used against him.

  Powerful allies make even more powerful foes.

  Nixon locked his office door and pocketed the key. The mounting paranoia created a hollow pit in his gut and he chewed down a handful of antacids he took from a half-empty bottle in his drawer. He sat down behind his expansive desk and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. Don’t panic. You planned for this. He had no choice but to move as much of the experiment as he could off-site, to the clinic.

  * * * * *

  The storm-darkened morning felt more like twilight. The smell of strong coffee filled the old cabin and the men shuffled to the bathroom in-turn, exhausted from rotating shifts of keeping watch over Zach and Scott and looking out for Nixon or Reid.

  Zach hadn’t intended to stay overnight, but explaining the unfathomable took longer than expected and still, very few, if any, of them believed him about the infection.

  “Everything okay?” Scott stretched his back, walking with a slight, stiff-legged limp into the kitchen, which was still well within earshot. He poured two black cups of coffee and sat down at the dusty farmhouse table.

  Zach nodded and climbed out from between the folds of the musty sleeping bag. “I’m fine,” he said, though he was anything but. He rubbed his tired eyes, having been kept up by the incessant thunder and the snoring of the others camped out on the floor in sleeping bags near his.