CURE (A Strandville Zombie Novel)

by Frisch, Belinda

  Trust, with this group, didn’t come easy.

  “But…?” Scott sipped from an old promotional mug whose insurance logo had long since faded.

  “Nothing,” Zach said. “I’m just worried about Allison. I should’ve gone back. Nixon must’ve noticed I left by now.”

  Kurt, Carlene’s father, lit a cigarette and inhaled. “We’re all worried about someone. Frank and I lost our daughters, Billy, his sister, and Lenny his wife.” Dark circles rimmed his sad eyes.

  Zach didn’t mention it, but he was awake when Kurt woke up in the middle of the night screaming for Carlene. He contemplated talking to him but, considering the lack of trust, settled on staring out the window. A bolt of lightning touched down in the back field and lit the obsidian sky.

  Lenny yanked the Kelvinator’s handle and stood there with it open. The refrigerator’s rust and dents made it hard to believe it kept anything cold. “I’m worried about us,” he said and knocked back a can of Pabst. He took a second for slower sipping.

  Frank, the eldest of them, clucked his tongue. He buttoned his red and black plaid flannel over his turtleneck and straightened the oversized belt buckle that dwarfed his thin waist. “I am too, if you’re part of the plan. You really think this is the kind of thing you do shitfaced, Lenny?”

  Lenny lit a cigarette and belched. “This asshole’s talkin’ about guns and zombies and you’re upset over a few beers. Don’t worry. I can handle my liquor.”

  Frank’s teeth clicked against his fingernails, already bitten down to nubs.

  Zach raised an eyebrow. “Do you have to do that?” He buttered the piece of toast Billy had made for him, but had lost his appetite.

  “I recently quit smoking,” Frank said, explaining the nervous behavior.

  Billy smirked. “You gotta pacemaker, what more d’ya have to worry about?”

  Frank rolled his eyes and tucked his hand between his leg and the wooden bench he sat on.

  John, who looked no older than Billy, munched on a sleeve of stale crackers he took from the barren cabinet. He kept his eyes downcast and said little since waking up.

  Zach nodded in his direction. “I know the others’ stories. What about yours?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” John muttered and tucked a small, silver ring on a chain into his shirt.

  Billy huffed out a breath. “Then I will. John’s only here outta guilt. Nixon killed his fiancé, April. At least, that’s what we think.”

  “Killed?” It was the first time that Zach had heard someone, other than Reid, accused of murder.

  “She was taken right out of their apartment. John was too scared to help her. Few months later, her body was found in a Nixon Center dumpster, cut up all surgery like. No way of knowin’ what happened, exactly, but when she went missin’, that’s where she turned up.”

  “You saw this?” Zach asked John, his heart going out to him.

  John nodded. “Had to identify her.” He looked away so the other men wouldn’t see him crying.

  “That’s how we first came to think it was Nixon takin’ the girls,” Billy said. “Amy dated a guard--who also went missing--Penny went to one of his clinics, and Annie was his patient. It all fits.”

  Zach sighed. “I wondered how your group got together.” He set down his scalding hot coffee to cool.

  Kurt folded his nervously shaking hands on the table to steady them. “So how do you plan to get them all back?”

  “Hand me that paper would you, Scott?” Zach uncapped a black marker and unfolded the Sports section of the weeks old newspaper. He sketched a map of the basement level from memory. “Here is the ward where the women are. The infected are in these cells, here, by the Control Room. This elevator,” he drew a door, “is the only way up and down. I have a key, but my wife’s not with the others. She’s a patient, not a prisoner.”

  Lenny scoffed, fogging the air around him with the thick smell of alcohol. “Ain’t that lucky for her?”

  “Lucky?” He stopped short of divulging the specifics of her treatment for fear that if they suspected her infection, they wouldn’t help him find her. “I wouldn’t call her lucky. Nixon moved her when I found out about the guard they have down there.” He’d already told them the stories. “I’ve been thinking about it all night and I’m almost positive he has her on the fifth floor. We’re going to have to release the infected to keep Nixon’s people busy while we get the women out. They’re not much of a distraction dead.”

  “I don’t like this,” Frank said. “There has to be another way.”

  Scott shook his head, the wound at the back of it finally sealed up enough that it wasn’t bleeding. “Zach’s right. Billy can vouch for Reid’s brutality. We need a big enough distraction that security has to pay attention. Zach, if you think Allison’s on the fifth floor, someone else will have to check for you. Nixon’s going to be watching for you, specifically, and you’re the only one that can get to the basement.”

  Zach shrugged. “Security is looking for you, too, Scott.”

  Frank had resumed gnawing and spit a fingernail onto the floor. “Lenny, you’ll be the distraction. I’m pretty sure Nixon’s staff knows about most of us.” He pointed at Billy who was tapping his disposable lighter on the table. “The three of you are too conspicuous. Lenny might not have been seen last time.”

  “I have an idea on how we can get in,” Billy said, “but we hafta stop at the firehouse first.”

  Frank picked at a hangnail. “Zach, tell me about Allison. What are we dealing with?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. Had he said something to indicate her condition?

  “You said she’s a patient. What is she hooked up to? Can she walk?”

  Zach sighed, relieved. “Last I saw her she was pretty rigged up. An IV, possibly a catheter, and she’s weak. You’ll need a wheelchair.”

  “Frank, you have EMT training, don’t you?” Mark asked.

  “About a hundred years ago. You’re the doc now, Doc.”

  “I’m a vet, not a medical doctor,” Mark said. “It’s not exactly the same thing. Besides, we can’t send all of our men after one woman. I need to go with Zach, Scott, and Kurt. Frank, you go with the boys, unhook her equipment, and get her out of there. Monitor her in the van until we can get her to safe medical care.”

  Frank drew his eyebrows together and pursed his thin lips. “And what about Holly?”

  Zach didn’t recognize the name. There were two postpartum women unaccounted for in the group. Either could have been Frank’s daughter.

  Mark held up his hand as if swearing an oath. “I won’t let anything happen to Holly, Frank. I’ll get her out of there myself. I just think it’s better to have the…”

  Mark stopped mid-sentence and Frank grimaced. “You can say it, it’s better to have the younger men downstairs. No one wants to risk some kids or have to save the old man’s ass.”

  “It’s not like that.” Mark tried, unconvincingly, to backpeddle.

  “Actually, it’s exactly like that,” Zach said. “These things are strong and quicker than I’d have given them credit for. We have to let the infected out of their cells in order to distract Nixon and security while we get the women to safety, but the infection is lethal. We need to be smart because one bite and any one of us is a goner.”

  Scott stared out the window and twisted the platinum band on his ring finger. “I’ll ask the obvious, but how do we kill these things?”

  Zach took a deep breath. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Let Nixon’s people wrangle them. That’s the whole reason we’re opening the cells in the first place. If we kill them, yes, we’re hurting the experiment, but we’re also then the primary targets. Only one elevator goes to the basement. It’s Nixon’s way of controlling access up and down. There should be no way for the infected to get past it. Any of them get upstairs and there’ll be much bigger problems.”

  “And assume it comes to that. What if one of them hitches a ride? How do w
e deal with it?” John asked. “Do we kill them then?”

  “I suppose then we’d have to. Wounds to the torso or the head are the most effective. They bleed out quickly and die. Nixon experimented on the only infected female to find their weaknesses. He bled her out almost to death and transfused her to bring her back. He drowned and mechanically resuscitated her. Then, he burned her. That was what killed her. He cremated her in front of her husband, who is also infected and is down in the basement. Nixon wanted to see if they showed emotion.”

  “And?”

  Zach shrugged. “Her husband reacted, I guess, but he’s one of a kind. Don’t get me wrong, he’d gouge your eyes out and eat your brains given the chance but they say he’s aware, that he’s cognizant and plotting his revenge.”

  Scott smirked. “My money’s on letting him have it.”

  25.

  Rain poured down on the rusted van parked in an unguarded ancillary lot at the Nixon Center.

  “I told ya’ I had a plan.” Billy smiled, a picket fence of misaligned teeth stained brown from chewing tobacco.

  Scott nodded, anxious to find Miranda. “This might just work.”

  The turnout gear Billy took from the volunteer firehouse offered the perfect cover considering their planned distraction. He handed out a stack of two-way radios and fastened one at his waist. “Turn ‘em on an’ check the batteries.”

  A series of clicks and each of them nodded.

  “Hand me that jacket, would you?” Zach asked.

  Mark handed over the yellow coat and worked to get himself inside the suspendered pants in such a tight space. “I still don’t believe Kurt didn’t show.”

  Lenny chugged the last of his morning beer. “I can’t believe the rest of us did.”

  Scott couldn’t help thinking they’d have been better off without him. A temperamental drunk could be the perfect distraction or an unreliable disaster.

  “No one made you come here,” Billy said.

  Lenny leaned forward, the tension between him and Billy apparent. “My girls made me. They need their ma home.”

  Scott zippered his heavy, yellow coat. He dripped with sweat. The humidity of the merciless storm combined with the heat of six men crammed into a van made wearing full fireman’s gear almost unbearable. He held his mask for the last minute.

  “Lenny, are you ready?” Mark asked.

  Lenny wore his usual—jeans, beater, and boots—and he stunk of warm beer and rye. “Yeah, I’m ready. I still don’t know why I hafta be the fuckin’ distraction.” He opened and closed his bone-handled pocketknife, narrowly missing clipping his fingers.

  Mark smirked. “Because none of us trusts you with a gun.”

  Zach adjusted his pistol in a shoulder holster.

  Scott preferred his holstered at his waist and loaded his pockets with as much ammo as they could hold.

  “We don’t shoot unless we absolutely have to,” Zach said.

  Scott didn’t need a reminder. He rolled his eyes and noticed John, the youngest of them, with his head bowed and fidgeting with the hood strings of the sweatshirt in his lap. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Billy gave John a shot to the arm that looked anything but playful. “Snap out of it,” he said. “Pussy.”

  Mark narrowed his eyes. “Leave him alone, Billy. We’re one man short already. John, toss me the hoodie. Lenny needs something to hide his face.”

  John threw him the black hooded sweatshirt and Mark pulled it over Lenny’s head like he was dressing a child.

  Lenny pushed Mark’s hands away. “Jesus, I got it. Let me alone.” He put his arms in the sleeves and yanked the sweatshirt down over his torso.

  Mark lifted the hood. “Make sure this stays up.”

  “Yeah, I got it. Calm the fuck down.” Lenny pocketed two books of matches sealed inside a plastic baggie.

  Frank, who had thus far been quiet, clucked his tongue disapprovingly.

  “What the hell’s your problem?” Lenny asked. His profuse sweating magnified the drunken stink flowing from his pores.

  “The six-pack you drank for breakfast,” Frank said. “If anyone sees you…”

  Lenny interrupted. “The only one’d recognize me is Nixon, assumin’ he remembers patients’ husbands.”

  John handed Lenny a fresh pack of Pall Malls and a thunderclap vibrated through the van.

  Lenny held up the cigarettes in a toast. “Let’s hope that ain’t a sign.” He shook his head. “Shit, even God thinks this’s a bad idea.”

  Billy patted Lenny firmly on the back and handed him a 16 oz. soda bottle filled with gasoline. “This one’s for Annie, Len.”

  Lenny snarled. “No, this’s for my girls.”

  Billy opened the rear van door and gave Lenny a shove.

  Lenny stumbled out into the storm, his work boots splashing in a deceptively deep puddle when his unsteady feet hit the wet pavement. He teetered.

  “You got this?” Billy asked.

  Lenny pulled up the hood, tightened the strings, and gave him the thumbs up. “This better fucking work,” he mumbled and headed for the shed nearest the center’s side door.

  * * * * *

  The small outbuilding labeled “Smoking Area was, luckily, empty. Lenny stepped inside, waterlogged with enough booze to almost quell his fear. The familiar numbness provided an escape from the nagging thought that what they were about to do was all going to end badly. He sat down on one of three deteriorating office chairs and pulled a Pall Mall from the pack he managed to keep dry in the rain.

  He lit the cigarette, mindful of the gasoline-filled bottle weighing down his sweatshirt pocket and took a few drags. His mind wandered to his last argument with Annie, the day she went into the hospital. He recalled what she had said that started their fight. The girls need their father sober.

  He hadn’t meant to hit her, to keep hitting her until she was unconscious. His girls’ wounded expressions haunted him still.

  What if he found her and she didn’t want to come home with him?

  The thought sparked a string of uncertainty that made him wish for a bottle of whiskey. His hand shook, knocking the last ash to the ground. He looked down and realized he was holding little more than a filter.

  Still, no one had shown up for a smoke and he knew he allowed himself more than enough time to see that the coast was clear. He steadied his now frayed nerves, calling on the remainder of his buzz for bravado, and went into the desolate first floor hallway.

  To the far right was a sign for Human Resources and to the left, one for the morgue. No security or staff that he could see. He lit a second cigarette, dangled it from his lip, and buried the tip of his pocketknife into the plastic water bottle. The smell turned his hollow stomach. He hadn’t eaten in days, preferring a steady diet of alcohol instead of food. The gas dripped slowly, at first, and then faster when he thrust the blade in and widened the gap. He dribbled a trail to under the first visible smoke detector and dropped the lit cigarette.

  “Shit!”

  The puddle of gas extinguished it, soaking it to the filter.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Off-balance and nauseous, Lenny struggled to get a pack of dry matches out of the baggie caught on the keys in his pocket.

  “Hey! What are you doing there?” A militant-looking guard brandished his side-arm.

  He’d been made.

  His hand shook, the anxiety he’d managed to bury rising to the surface.

  Hurry.

  The guard advanced, his expression quizzical as he whiffed the air. “Hey, you. Stop. What are you doing?”

  You can do this, Lenny. If the distraction failed, the others would never forgive him. Annie would never come home. He pulled, hard, and the bag ripped.

  “Stop right there,” he slurred and threw the soda bottle on the ground.

  The guard held his hand up, looking down at the trickle of gasoline under his feet. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Lenny worked a matchbook free and
quickly tore off one of the matches. “I’m warnin’ you. Stay back.”

  The guard kept coming, determined.

  “I mean it,” Lenny said and struck the match.

  The small flame ignited and the guard froze.

  “I’m givin’ you three seconds to run.”

  The guard was obviously weighing his options.

  “Two…” The match burned down halfway. “One.” He flicked it just before it reached his fingertips.

  The trail went up fast, the flames separating him from the guard.

  Lenny took off in the other direction, running in a weaving pattern. His wet work boots skidded on the polished tile.

  The guard narrowly avoided being engulfed in flames and Lenny heard him shouting, radioing for help.

  He pushed himself, running when his legs threatened to crumble and the stitch in his side sharpened. His pulse raced and dizziness gave way to a pounding headache.

  He was almost there.

  The red exit sign was just up ahead.

  You did it, Lenny.

  But his self-congratulations were premature. Three armed guards appeared and formed an impenetrable human barricade in front of it.

  26.

  Miranda wiped her runny nose on the back of her hand so Reid wouldn’t hear her sniffle. An eerie silence replaced the orderly’s pleas and a stream of tears ran down her cheeks. His slow and painful death had been her fault, even though she never intended her escape to cost him his life.

  She had come to a place of suffering.

  Hiding in the pipe work above the drop ceiling, she realized she’d gone from one trap to another.

  Reid cleared the utility shelves in the room directly below her. The same ones she’d used to climb up. He knew where she was and was coming for her. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She unclenched her sweaty fists and pressed down on the sturdiest looking ductwork to see if it would support her. It felt strong, but adding the rest of her weight was a risk. She shifted from one foot to the other and the metal groaned.

  Something thumped against a nearby ceiling tile.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are.” Reid taunted.