What if I infect him?
Already emotionally spent, it went to the back burner.
“We'll try Bosley's office, just like the note says,” he pointed to the door.
“You think that's where he'd be?” She was sure Liam wouldn't go there.
“No, not at all. We're going there to let them know the threats they're facing, and we'll tell them Liam is going to be instrumental in helping stave off the attacks from the outside.”
“We're going to lie?”
He looked taken aback. “Lie? Heavens no! We're going to save your boyfriend's life.”
She looked at him with troubled eyes but allowed his words to sooth her.
It's a very small lie. And, with Liam here, we really can save more lives.
She said nothing on the walk along the mile-long empty avenue. The mature trees lining each side provided shade and a pleasant atmosphere. She could almost ignore the edges of the large crowd in the park on her right.
When they entered the hospital, she still wasn't sure she was doing the right thing.
What if I infect everyone?
Chapter 10: Freefall
They reached Bosley Deveraux's office at the top of the hospital tower without incident. The two guards at the elevator patted them down, even though Victoria left her rifle at the gun check on the main floor. The patting was something new. Last time she'd been on the floor, they weren't bothered. Of course, that time she was with Doctor Yu, instead of Douglas Hayes.
Unless they just want to touch me.
Worried that was true, she suffered the indignity in silence, then moved away as soon as they gave the OK. She never made eye contact with them but sensed the stares as she walked away. She was glad to make it to the camp administrator's office.
Deveraux didn't get up from his desk. “Damn you, Doctor Stevens. What are you doing to my research facilities?”
As on her last visit, the administrator sat looking at a screen with a video feed. It had been playing footage from the convoy now heading to St. Louis, but she couldn't be sure that was what he was watching this time.
“Good to see you, too, Bosley,” Hayes said with his best attempt at charm. “And since when do I get patted down?” He acted offended, though he was faking it—just like his false name.
“Since you started setting fires!” He banged on the desk.
“Me? No, you've got me all wrong. She and I,” he pointed to Victoria, “were trapped in the security room when the zombies broke containment.”
“And what were you two doing in the security room, if I may ask?”
Victoria's face burned. The thought of doing anything improper with Hayes was repulsive. She was prepared for Hayes to run with that fiction, but he surprised her.
“She was accosted in the tunnel on the way to her dorm. I saw her on the cameras and guided her in. She was instrumental in getting us to safety, and alerting the authorities on the defense wall. They came and got us, and cleared out the infected. Sadly, the only way to do that and still keep their men safe was to burn the insides of the building.” He spoke as if he were reading a prepared statement. To Victoria, it came across as the absolute truth. He'd only left out certain details…
Deveraux looked at her for a long moment. Just long enough to make her uncomfortable. “I guess I owe you thanks. Doctor Stevens has made many advancements in the search for the cure in that building, and losing all that work would be tragic, though losing him would be a global loss.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Hayes responded with a smile. “But, Bos, we have a new problem.”
The man slumped back in his high-backed swivel chair. “Just what I need. More problems.” He nodded to the screen but didn't turn up the sound. “The convoy is still stuck in West Virginia. They say the bridges have been stressed by all the heavy equipment passing over them. The repairs are taking a lot of time, and the whole effort seems in danger of failure.”
Hayes took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and put his feet on the edge of the desk like he owned the place. “You only see what they want you to see. I guarantee they aren't holding things up because of some rusty bridges.”
“Then what?”
“Oh, probably too many infected. Or too many people falling prey to the zombies. Or, worst of all, maybe the convoy is already here.”
The two men stared at each other. Victoria couldn't see Hayes' face, but Bosley's eyes were rigid. His eventual response was measured. “And why would that be the worst of all, doctor?”
Hayes looked up to Victoria with a smile, then turned back to the desk. “Because, sir, it would mean our time in this dangerous hellhole called the Zombie Apocalypse might be coming to an end.” Victoria could hear the smile. Deveraux did not return it.
“I don't get you. You do such good work in the lab, but you are a complete jagoff everywhere else.”
“See! That right there is why I need to get up here more. The socializing.”
Victoria was unsure how to feel. Hayes was always a jerk, that much was true, but Deveraux more or less threw her and Liam out the last time, after they had suggested the zombie disease was much worse than anyone knew. A fact he seemed determined to ignore on both visits.
“Why did you really come here, doctor. I'm a very busy man.”
“I can see that. Watching TV and drinking Scotch can take a lot out of a man.” Hayes reached to the desk and lifted a napkin which had been placed over a clear glass of a golden liquid.
“Screw you. Do you have any idea what I have to deal with here? Lists of dead. Threats of infection. Diminishing medical supplies.”
“Don't forget, you're almost out of food,” Hayes prodded.
Deveraux actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, that, too. And now I have my most hopeful line of research go up in smoke because you and this slut wanted to play sneak and slide in a private room.”
“Hey!” Victoria shouted, though Hayes was already speaking.
“I told you, there's nothing going on like that. In fact, we came to ask about her boyfriend, Liam.”
“You met him a couple days ago, with Doctor Yu,” she said with accusation.
Deveraux reached for his glass, then downed the remaining two fingers of Scotch. He set the glass back on his desk with great care, apparently thinking as he did so.
“Liam won't be coming back, I'm afraid to say.” He clicked some letters on his keyboard and the computer monitor flipped from images of the convoy to a still image of an old man walking along the main avenue outside the hospital.
“Hans Grubmeyer,” Victoria let slip.
“Yes. After you left my office the last time, you asked one of my nurses for some proprietary information about elderly people in the area. She explained where you'd gone. From there it was easy to piece everything together. We watched all the people who went in. All the people who went out. Our counter-surveillance operation is small but efficient. We watched Liam and his friends leave the compound, and we know he hasn't come back in. None of them have. They're dead.”
Hayes was quiet. She watched him, waiting for the snarky response.
“A shame about the research, though. Your appearance in camp really helped take us to the next level.” Deveraux looked at Hayes with a frown. “If it were up to me...”
“Doctor Stevens? What's going on here?”
He stood up, stretching like he was bored, then turned to her. “This is the end of the line for you, I'm afraid.”
“What? No! We have to save Liam. Together. Like you promised.”
But it was obvious. She'd been led into a trap. Hayes had betrayed her.
2
“Um, no. That's not what's happening at all,” Deveraux said with a pleasant voice. “You are being arrested for destruction of government research. This is the end for both of you.”
Hayes looked hurt, but she felt a tiny bit of relief when she saw his expression.
“Aw man, I thought you and I had an understanding? I bring you
terrorists like Victoria, and you let me do my research in peace.” He winked at her.
“We're way beyond agreements, Douglas Reginald Hayes. She said you were the most dangerous person within a hundred miles of here—”
“Only a hundred?”
“—and you walked right in my office.”
“She'll be so pleased.”
“Yes. She will,” Deveraux said with growing anger.
“Will someone please tell me what the...heck...is going on here?”
Hayes responded with mock seriousness. “Deveraux is doing the bidding of one Ms. Elsa Cantwell.”
“Elsa? From the invitation? She controls him?”
“No one controls me, Missy. But Homeland Security is in charge of everything you see out my windows. She's the only one who can get me the supplies I need to keep my people alive.”
Victoria spoke with dawning understanding. “He doesn't know?”
Hayes responded. “No, he still thinks there's a Homeland Security.”
That peaked Deveraux's interest. “What are you saying? Of course there's still a Homeland Security.” He pointed to the screen, though it still showed Hans. “The convoy is being guided by Homeland. The video feeds are Homeland. My food comes from Homeland.”
Hayes laughed with scorn. “You must be dumber than I thought. Elsa is the one who burned the research. Elsa is the one who sent a team to kill Hans in his home. She's trying to kill me, Victoria, and, in time, she'll kill you and everyone in your precious camp. You can't sit up here and run out the clock on this disaster.”
The camp director didn't try to hide his actions. He reached for a bottle he'd apparently set on the floor under his desk, then poured himself a full tumbler. With a deep sniff, he tipped it back and downed the whole thing in several big gulps.
“You better watch that bad habit,” Hayes said to annoy him. Which it clearly did.
“Your mouth is a bad habit,” he said lamely.
“So where is Hans?” Victoria queried. If they knew where the old man had gone, it might give her a clue to where Liam had gone.
“We don't know. He was last seen walking the streets, but he disappeared from his tail. No one took that old man seriously as an escape threat.”
Hayes laughed.
“Yeah, it's all fun and games, but you are under arrest, and when Elsa gets here we'll see if you're still laughing.”
“When will she be here,” she said innocently.
“When she's here. I don't make the timeline; I just run the biggest damned camp of refugees in the Midwest.”
“She's playing you,” Hayes said with his normal charm.
“Shut up. Just shut up!” Deveraux was sweating profusely. The hospital still had nominal power, but the air conditioning had been set extremely high. His condition—including glassy eyes and slurring speech—had nothing to do with heat.
“Where is she, Bos, old friend?”
“Old friend? We've only known each other for two weeks,” he laughed weakly. “And you lied to me the whole time.”
“I meant that one day when we look back on this, we'd be old friends,” he said with a smooth cadence. “One day we'll look back on the time when we figured out that things weren't what they seemed.”
“Ha! Her young beau came in here spouting about dead bodies being reanimated by this virus. Some kind of supernatural mumbo jumbo. Your research says people can carry the virus and not appear to be sick at all—”
Victoria gulped, involuntarily.
“—and suddenly a 105-year-old walks out of our safety. None of this makes any sense.” He looked at his empty glass. “And this convoy. I've been watching it for days. Praying it gets here before everything goes to shit.” He pointed out the window. “You haven't been down there. People are losing patience with us. With me. They want answers. They want to go home. They want food. They want. They want. They f'ing want!”
Deveraux took his glass and threw it at the wall. In a stroke of irony, it hit a wooden picture frame for some artsy tapestry and plopped gently onto a nearby pile of papers. It was unbroken.
“God, I can't even get mad properly.”
“Sir, you have to let us go. I only want to find my boyfriend, and get out of here.” She didn't want to speak for Hayes. She didn't really know, for certain, what his intentions were.
The man laughed wildly. “See! Who the hell wants to leave the safety of this camp? We are the only safe place left. And you want to leave. Why? Help is almost here.”
She felt sorry for him. He seemed pitiful with his drinking and impotent in his anger, but he seemed genuine in his hope to keep his place running.
Hayes remained quiet.
“Mr. Deveraux. I've seen some incredible things outside of your camp. I've seen dead men walk. I've watched hordes of undead sweep over the healthy. I've climbed out of a grave. This man,” she pointed to Hayes, “was once my worst enemy. He shot me, in fact. But I believe him that Elsa is not with Homeland Security. She's with another organization.” She looked at Hayes, but he wasn't stopping her. “They're called the National Internal Security. I met one of their agents a while ago. He said they caused the plague, and I believe their goal is to kill us all. That's why I'm asking you, please, to let us go. We'll get out of your hair, and you'll never hear from us again.”
A lie?
“She said you were dangerous,” he pointed to Hayes, “but I think you are far more dangerous, young lady.”
He keyed his phone. “Melanie, I'm sending my two guests back down. Please give them their weapons and direct them to the gate.”
“Shall I tell your other party to wait, before going up?”
Deveraux held the button, evidently processing the possibilities with his alcohol-fueled brain.
3
Hayes didn't wait. “Come on.” He grabbed her by the arm.
“I'm coming.”
She expected Deveraux to say something, but he stayed silent at his desk. She gave him one last look before she was out the door, and he never stopped staring at the phone on his desk.
Outside the office, they saw the two security men in front of the elevators. They were looking outside the windows, but when the elevator dinged they turned to face the visitors.
“I guess she let them come up,” he whispered. “Follow me.”
The sign for the stairs was nearby, but they had to walk toward the elevators for a few yards. One of the men spotted them but returned his gaze to the elevator in front of him.
“They saw us,” she whispered.
Hayes opened the fire door as quietly as he could. He proceeded through and held the door for her. The moment before she walked through, she caught sight of a person coming out of the elevator. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like a woman.
The door snapped shut while they stood just inside. Hayes started up the steps.
“Shouldn't we go down?” she asked incredulously.
“Trust me. We have to go up.” He didn't wait for her.
Left with two bad options, she decided to follow. Not because she trusted him, but…
Why am I following him?
In a few short moments, they were at the top door. She didn't have time to answer her own question.
“Hayes!” a man called from below them. “We know it's you.”
Hayes froze against the door, then put his head against it. Victoria began to say something, and he raised his finger for her to wait one moment. He'd shifted, so his ear was against the solid metal.
“I'm armed,” he shouted while apparently hugging the door.
Victoria leaned over the side, but Hayes yanked her back. In the instant she could see below, a man had shot up at her from a floor down. She looked at the ceiling and saw the impact.
“Whoa!” was all she could say.
“I swear to God, I'm going to shoot anyone who comes up this stairwell,” Hayes shouted.
Victoria looked at him like he was crazy.
“Trust me. Do as I say,”
he said quietly.
“Come on now. We don't want no trouble.” Laughter from below. The footfalls on the concrete stairs were quiet but distinct. They were on the way up.
She mouthed “What are you doing?” while she hunched her shoulders.
He smiled in return.
Seconds rattled by like a freight train bearing down on a blown bridge. She saw nothing that would make any kind of weapon. The only thing besides the door was an inset bulb in the ceiling. Things were moving too fast to a bad end.
“Get down,” Hayes whispered. He showed her by laying flat on his stomach. “Stay down, no matter what.”
“This is your plan? Lie down and die?” She briefly considered jumping down the stairs and attacking the two men, but she knew where that would end.
“Trust me!”
She did as instructed, resigned to whatever fate Hayes had steered her into.
Liam wouldn't have let us get caught so easily.
He had a knack for getting them out of tight situations. She left him for one day, and she'd been snared in several traps. Hayes would have her killed, after all.
“Well, well. She said you were the most dangerous man alive. But I think she made a mistake.” Victoria kept her head down, as if to ignore what unfolded around her.
Another man laughed. Their feet clomped on the final steps. She felt the shift in the air. They were on the landing with her and Hayes.
“Elsa is right about a lot of things, but I'm not sure she'd be fired up by your incompetence.”
A malicious laugh. “I think she'll be just fine when I show her your body. You just gonna lay there? After all the trouble we went through to find you?”
“You knew I was here. How hard could it have been? She could have had me fired.”
“Hmm. I guess that's true. She's been, eh, busy. I guess she just had some free time for you today.”
“Maybe. You know what they say, though?”
“No, what?”
“Fire the gun. Fire it!”
A brief laugh. “All right, if you ins—”
The stairwell became a deafening shooting gallery of gunfire. A combination of metallic clinks, ricochets off the cement, and the wet impacts of bullets on flesh intermingled in Victoria's ears. It only lasted for a few seconds, and when it stopped the only sounds remaining were those of bodies sliding down the steps. When they descended to the next landing, it became unnaturally silent.
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After Page 19