He doesn't have to know I'm scared.
There should be someone from the Patriot Snowball group inside. They'd made an arrangement with Hans—Liam did. They'd go pick up his tanks for him, and he'd provide provisions. A kind of hidden base for them to use this close to Forest Park. It was a match made in Heaven, or so she thought.
Hayes hesitated at the front steps.
“Please?”
The turmoil was visible on his face. Come inside to help the teenage girl, or stay outside where it was safe. She wasn't about to complain that he owed her. She wanted to save that for future use.
He came up the steps with care, and when he reached the front door and saw inside he hesitated.
Victoria looked inside. All she saw were the boxes.
“What is it?”
“Who lives here, did you say?”
“Hans Grubmeyer.”
“How did you find him?” His face was pale.
She tried to arrange the chain of events properly.
“We were looking for old people at the hospital. They said Hans had been released recently and sent back home. We found him here. It was the address listed on his admission paperwork.”
“Where's Liam? Why isn't he here?” Hayes' voice was uncharacteristically emotional.
“He's out. Why does it matter?”
“Because you won't tell me. And the fact you've just walked us into an NIS supply drop doesn't give me much comfort, either.”
Something moved in the shadows of the hallway.
God. Don't let this be the end.
She readied her rifle.
4
Victoria got down on one knee like Liam had shown her. With careful aim, she put several rounds into the face of the military-looking male zombie stumbling out of the hallway. As soon as it hit the light, she knew he wasn't NIS. It was one of the Patriots left behind to keep the place safe until Liam and Lana returned.
Though the bullets were tiny, her aim was true. The zombie slid noisily on the wooden floor and came to a rest a few feet from her.
“I got him,” she turned to tell Hayes, but he had gone.
“You big sissy!”
She removed one of her hands from the gun, noticed it was shaking, and then gripped the frame again.
“Hans?” she said with trepidation.
No reply came from within the house.
“Is it clear?” Hayes asked from somewhere out front.
“Yes. The zombie is dead.”
Victoria poked her head down each of the two hallways but wasn't interested in searching the whole house. For the moment, she was content to know the front room was safe.
Hayes was there when she backed into the front room.
“What are you good for?” she asked with a scalding tone.
He didn't reply.
When she got a look at the zombie, it had something on its face that screamed for her attention. It was a white sheet of paper, and it had been duct taped to the side of the man's face.
“One of us needs to check this out,” she pointed to the sheet with the barrel of her rifle. “It has to be you unless you want to hold the gun.”
“O-OK,” he replied.
After much effort to remove the duct tape without ripping the paper, he had it in his hand. It was a folded sheet of stout paper with fancy wording on the front.
“It's a wedding invitation.”
“Seriously? What does that mean?”
“I told you. These people play to win. This is Elsa's. The invite is for her wedding with one M. Duchesne.”
“What's it doing here?” she asked, though she was starting to get a sense of it.
He stared at it for a long moment, then showed it to her. Someone used a pen to print large block letters near the top of the page. It said: “For Douglas Hayes, wedding crasher.”
“Who's it from?”
“It was Elsa. She knew I'd come here.” His voice remained panicky. “Which is why we have to get out. Now.” He threw down the paper, and backed to the door.
“But what's going on?”
“Don't you see, this is a trap.”
“Help.” The voice came from inside the room, but from behind some of the towers of boxes.
She looked at Hayes. He'd heard the voice, but kept going for the door.
“We have to help.” She didn't know if that was true.
“No, we have to run.”
“Help, please,” came the male voice.
“We hear you,” she said firmly. Then she carefully picked her way to a corner of the room with a small gap in the boxes. The work boots of a man on the floor came into view.
“I'm here. Who are you?” she asked before she stuck her head around.
“I'm shot. I recognized your voice. You are...begins with a V...” the man said weakly.
“Victoria,” she replied.
She peeked around the corner, waiting to get shot. But the man was down. No weapons visible.
“Hayes, I need help,” she called out. To her surprise, he found her in moments. Together they lifted the man from his hiding spot, as that was what it appeared to be, and got him to a chair in the cramped room.
“It was the old man. He shot us. Said he wasn't going to be taken alive.”
“How many were you?” Hayes asked.
“Me and Becker. We walked out back for some fresh air, leaving that old bastard alone. All he did was sleep, anyway. We heard gunshots and ran. When we came back, it was just him and his pop gun standing over the bodies of two men in black uniforms. He looked all proud like he'd just bagged a couple of lions on safari. We thought someone had tried to rob him and were even congratulating him on being such a good shot—and that's when the sonofabitch shot us, too.”
He took a deep breath, appearing to be in pain. He had several bloody spots on his upper chest. “Beck went right down. Hans was a good shot, I'm afraid. I think he figured me for dead because I stumbled into this room and threw myself into the boxes to get away from him. He shouted some nonsense that 'she' wasn't going to kill him. That the assassination attempt would fail.”
“Where is he?”
“No idea.”
“Do you know anything about this,” Victoria picked up the nearby leaflet. The injured man held it while he read the names.
“Elsa,” he said with recognition. “He said this name a couple of times. Didn't know what he meant. Still don't,” he said with finality.
Victoria looked at Hayes, who seemed to wear an “I-told-you-so” face. “Elsa did this. She's sweeping up messes.” He looked at her. “Me. You. This Hans guy. Though I have no idea what he did to cross them.”
“The tanks,” croaked the man.
“What?”
He turned to Hayes. “The old man told the kid about the tanks. Sent him to go get them. He went on about how he shouldn't have done that.”
“Military tanks? He sent him to get a real tank?”
The man nodded as best he could. “These people have hundreds of 'em.”
Hayes pivoted toward her. It was her turn to look sheepish. “Is this true? Liam went off to get tanks? You didn't think that was worth telling me? And who is this guy?” he pointed, “and why was he here in NIS-land with you and oh-so-innocent Liam?”
Victoria felt defensive but was unable to reconcile the need to protect Liam with the need to tell Hayes about Liam's comings and goings, even if her omission resulted in her ongoing disaster of a morning with Hayes.
“I didn't tell you because it's none of your business.”
Hayes' eyes swept the room and seemed to make a realization. He let out a deep breath. “I get it. You don't trust me. But you've just walked us into the head of an important NIS family. Maybe the most senior member in the Midwest. That man sent your boyfriend on some kind of wild goose chase—I assure you whatever tanks he thinks he was getting will not be given to him. He's going to get himself killed. And now Elsa is trying to kill a senior member of the organization... And you wa
lked me right through his front door.”
He ripped the wedding invitation from the hands of the wounded man. “And this! Elsa had this left so I would find it. It won't mean anything to anyone else. She knew I'd show up. She wanted me to find this. She's playing with us,” he said with derision. “So thanks for that, Vicky.”
5
“Hans knew she'd come to get him,” the guy wheezed. “And he was working on a bomb. The man talks to himself,” he gurgled.
Victoria kneeled down to him. “Just rest. We'll figure this out.”
Hayes looked around the room. “I don't see a bomb.”
“Help me up.”
“No. You're shot.”
“Sweetie, I'm dead already. No one is going to fix a wound like this,” he nodded his head to a serious gash on the side of his chest. “But I think I can help you.”
Together, they lifted him to his feet. After he got his bearings, he spoke tiredly. “There. That's the box.”
Victoria and Hayes put him down in the clear part of the room where an open-topped metallic box sat on the lap of one of the NIS corpses. When he examined it, he smiled with satisfaction.
“How did you know this had explosives in it?”
“The long answer involves the military, a chicken, and a million lines of code. The short answer is this box wasn't here before. The old man was puttering around with something, and this has to be it.”
“Will it go off?” she said with reverence. She pulled off her long-sleeved shirt as the exertion of the morning had made it expendable.
“Nah. It has to be wired up. I would have been surprised if the old man could do it.”
“Can you?”
He chuckled. “I'm guessing neither of you can do this.” When they didn't reply, he continued. “So yeah, I can. If that Elsa lady comes through here, she'll get quite the surprise.”
“Well, get to it,” Hayes said with haste. He then pulled Victoria down the hallway, toward the back door. They were next to the porch filled with ammo before he spoke.
“He tried to get things going with this suitcase surprise, but the old man isn't coming back. She'll be out for blood if he took down her people. He's fleeing the scene of the crime.”
“So where will he go?”
“Hard to say. Depends on how much of a planner he was. Who his friends are on the outside. But I don't think an old man has much chance to get very far.”
“Hmm, kind of like Grandma Marty?” she said with a touch of condescension.
Hayes studied her face. “Look. Things are a lot different than even a few weeks ago. The people outside are weaker, and the zombies are stronger. Anyone with the means to avoid the zombies—like the NIS—can prey on the survivors with impunity. She could drop on the roof of this mansion, kill us, and be back to her camp before dinner. She has that kind of reach. It all depends on how much immediate risk the old man poses to her.”
Victoria had a light go on. “Could he pose more risk than a scientific researcher close to finding a cure? Research, you say, she is doing everything she can to destroy?”
“This isn't a flight of fancy. She wants the disease to spread. It has to kill everyone.”
“But then she'd die.” It sounded empty as she spoke it.
“No, I'm sure they have a team working on the cure, too. They control the best scientists in the world. I know that for a fact from my time...uh...”
“Designing the plague in the first place.”
He rubbed the back of his head, signaling what passed for embarrassment for him. As always, he regained his composure in record time.
“It doesn't matter who's at the top of the Elsa Pyramid of Hate. At least two of her men are dead in this house,” he laughed. “She's coming back. Here. If we set this bomb, it may be our only chance to take her out.”
“While he sets up the bomb, can we continue our search for Liam?” She was going to check with Doctor Yu, but if that didn't yield anything she was going right to the administrator. Someone had to be able to find him.
What if he's back in the dorm room?
Hayes responded while she was lost in thought.
“...you know? That's why we have to get out of here.”
“Leave? No! I have to find him.”
If Liam had gone back to her dorm room to wait for her, it would be the ultimate insult to all her running and searching. But she believed what Hayes was saying about Elsa and her team. She could search new places, but going back would be impossible for the time being.
“There are a hundred thousand people out there.” His face signaled a new thought. “I bet you didn't know the food's running out?”
“What? When?”
“A couple of days. They're already cutting back. Do you know what that means?”
“People can survive for a long time without food. I saw it out at Camp Hope.”
“That was a quaint little valley of Kumbaya Boy Scouts. This is a whole city.” He spoke quietly but forcefully. “And that assumes the NIS doesn't airlift a bunch of zombies here to wipe everyone out.”
Her face went slack.
“Oh, it's true. Or, it could happen. These people will stop at nothing to ensure their plans go off without a hitch.”
“They want to survive at our expense?”
“Yes. You are either with them or against them. They entertain no middle ground.”
“We have to warn someone,” she said tiredly.
Hayes laughed. “Yeah, excuse us. There is a super duper secret organization planning to drop zombies on you, or release them from a lab, or put rabid infected dogs into your camp.” He looked at her with a deadly serious expression. “Who would believe us?”
“But you were inside. You know.”
“Victoria, even you don't believe me.”
For once, he spoke the truth.
6
“The old goat has everything. He was prepared for World War III.” They'd learned the man's name was Nick. He lifted a fancy box that fit snugly in both arms. “Including this.”
“What is it?” Hayes asked.
“It's just a box,” he giggled wetly.
Victoria and Hayes shared a look.
“But. But this box will serve nicely to spring our trap.”
He lifted the lid and made a “boom” sound.
Hayes' eyes lit up with understanding. He moved like a dervish as he planned his revenge. For once Victoria could marvel at his efficiency and craftiness without worrying for her own safety.
It took a long thirty minutes to set up the room. They'd found rolls of chicken wire out back, which Hayes explained would be his insurance policy that Elsa couldn't toss the box out the front windows. They strung the wire over the windows, then boarded the front door shut. His goal was to get Elsa in the room, then make it so she would find the box, read the note he was going to leave her, and have a few seconds to appreciate the fact she'd been beaten.
“I wish I could leave a camera here so I could watch her face.”
“You put one in my dorm room, can I get it for you?” she laughed, but only on the outside. She wasn't ever going to forgive him for that intrusion.
“No,” he said without addressing her sarcasm, “When we hear the boom, we'll know we got her.”
“And what if Liam shows up first?”
“I got ya covered,” Hayes said smoothly. He held up a sheet of paper.
“Liam. Meet me in Bosley Deveraux's office. Love, Victoria,” she read aloud.
“We'll nail that to the front door. If Elsa sees it first, it won't matter. She'll still come in. If Liam sees it first, he'll run like a lovesick puppy to Bosley's.”
“I'll nail this to the door,” she said as she grabbed it. “I'll go through the back door.”
She had a bounce in her step as she walked through the fresh morning grass. She stopped under a plum tree and took a deep breath. The air was humid and already warm, but she was out of the view of the refugees in the park and away from Hayes for a sh
ort time. It gave her a chance to enjoy the beauty of nature, just for a minute.
Ahead, on the ground, the bright orange plumage of a Robin bounded to and fro as it searched for worms. Life for the bird went on as if nothing of any consequence was happening in the world around it.
“God, if it's your will, please help the people in the park escape the fate of having zombies put in their midst. Protect them from such evil.”
It was an impossible prayer. More of a wish. Could anyone, God included, protect all those people? It wasn't very likely.
Not impossible. Just improbable.
Those were Grandma Marty's words.
“Come back to me, Liam. Hurry.”
The bird flew away as she walked to the front of the house. In moments she had the paper secured to the front door with a couple of nails she'd taken from Hans' supplies.
Looking at her work, and the words Hayes had written, she felt guilty for not writing them herself. Almost as if it were a crime for Hayes to speak for her.
She shook it off as unreasonable. Hayes ran up to her, keeping her thoughts on the moment.
“We have to go. All is set inside.”
“What about Nick?”
After a pause, Hayes shook his head.
“He died?”
“He was bleeding all over the place. There was nothing we could do for him. You saw that.”
She didn't know what she saw. Though the wound was serious…
“I should have tried to help him,” she said with sudden regret. “I was too worried about your revenge plot.”
“Revenge? No, this isn't about revenge. This is about self-preservation. That's the only thing that matters.”
“Spoken like a true NIS adherent,” she said with venom.
“I was NIS, no doubt about it. I did bad things. I don't deny it. But when I saw what the NIS wanted to do after the virus mutated...”
He stepped closer to her.
“Victoria, if you believe just one thing about me, you have to believe I truly want to find the cure. Not for the NIS. Not even for myself—though I hope there's enough for me—but for those people over there,” he pointed to the refugees in the huge park. “My self-preservation is theirs as well.”
Her emotion rushed out like a deflating balloon. It was hard to maintain constant anger and doubt at someone she had to work with. “Let's just go. I want to find Liam.”
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After Page 18