Mason was armed with an uncanny ability to walk amongst the Fleshers undetected. He hadn’t mastered it yet. His experience with Tanara when they were trying to get weapons had exposed him to a new situation that he survived, but wasn’t able to adapt to, at least not yet. Tanara had presented an obstacle he wasn’t expecting. One of the creatures made a sound, and it rattled Tanara enough to alert the Fleshers of her presence. It was unfortunate, because Mason liked the woman, but it wasn’t her that paid the price for her fear; it was her sister, Tynice. Tanara paid too, but that was the fruit of her torment. She was unable to adapt to the crisis, and it put everyone’s lives in jeopardy. Mason didn’t want to go through that type of situation again.
One of the ways he had adapted to maneuvering people through the Ravagers was to blindfold them, but what about the sounds they made? There was just too much that could go wrong with maneuvering through a horde. That was where Mason adapted. The plan he’d adapted from atop the water tower placed James’s life in jeopardy. Mason had used James as a pawn to attract the Fleshers to his location so that he could threaten and intimidate the Colonel into bartering with him. Now there was a man on top of the east gate that Mason planned on using to do just the opposite. He was going to use the man to attract the Fleshers away from the vocational building. But first, he had to make sure she was there.
Almost an hour passed before Mason found the vocational building. Looking inside, he couldn’t see Lydia. He reasoned with himself that it was a building full of rooms and that maybe she was in there, just not in the room where he was looking.
From the window he could see some women and children. None of them were dressed for the cooler evening temperatures that were rapidly approaching. Mason wondered if the people on the inside were unwilling prisoner residents, like the way the Colonel had tried to force him into taking up residence in Haven, or if they were legit members. Either way, he was fairly confident that most of them probably wanted to stay where they were until the Flesher threat had abated.
A sentry walked past the window.
Mason quickly looked around to see how many Fleshers were in eyeshot. He didn’t see any, so he knocked on the barred window.
The sentry turned around and saw Mason waving him over.
“What are you doing out there?” the sentry asked as he approached the window.
“The Colonel sent me over here to check on things,” Mason said, lying to his face. “We need help killing the rest of the Fleshers. They’re almost cleared out.”
The sentry unlocked the door and cracked it open about four inches. “What about the Order? Are they gone too?”
“They’re all turned. We killed two birds with one stone.”
“Where’s everybody else?” the sentry asked, seemingly confused at Mason’s answers. “And where’s your buddy?”
“My buddy?” Mason thought his lie had been detected.
“Yeah, you know the Colonel makes us travel in pairs.”
“Ah, yeah. He didn’t want to pull another man from the fight. That’s why I’m rounding up all that’s left, so that we can finish these things off.”
“I don’t hear any guns?” the sentry said, finally calling into doubt Mason’s story.
Irritated that he couldn’t talk the man into letting him in, he made a risky move. Mason grabbed the side of the door and thrust it open, hitting the man in the face with it. The act caught him off guard. He went to aim his rifle at Mason, but Mason already had his rifle up and pointing at him. Two shots rang out, hitting their target in the chest. Mason grabbed the sentry’s rifle as the man fell dying to the floor.
The women and children that were in the building began to scream and cry as they went to the ground in fear for their lives. Several children were still up roaming around, scared by what they had just heard. A few women snatched the children up and used their own bodies to shield the children beneath them.
“Lydia,” Mason called out as loud as he could. Another sentry came running into the room. Mason was ready for him. As soon as he entered, he was met by a volley of bullets. The second sentry managed to shoot a few off, as well, but his all missed, mainly spraying the wall.
At least one bullet hit a woman in a blue dress that was taking cover on the floor. Mason bent down to check on her. She was rolling around on the floor, belly up, arching her back in agony. Her face was gaunt-looking and she had the same protuberances on her face that he had encountered with the Scroungers. Mason knew she had been shot in the back, but he didn’t have time to deal with the woman or to spend time wondering about her condition.
“I’m looking for a little girl named Lydia. She’s about nine years old and she has brown hair,” Mason said loud enough for the whole room to hear.
When nobody responded, he went to the next room, yelling his daughter’s name as he went along.
“Daddy?” he heard coming from a distant room. It was faint, but he was sure that was what he heard. “Lydia,” he called out again. This time he had stopped in his tracks long enough to be silent so he could confirm both the direction and the sound of Lydia’s voice.
“Daddy,” he heard coming from down the hall. Mason ran as hard as he could, and as soon as he arrived at his destination, the gate slammed shut. It was a huge gate that roughly measured four feet wide and eight feet high. On the other side of it, Mason saw the Colonel. He had three men with him, and Lydia was wrapped tightly inside his arms with a pistol pointed at her head.
“I don’t make a habit of scaring children, Mason. But it looks like you’ve managed to do most of it yourself.”
Mason looked at Lydia and saw that she had the Scrounger sickness. He tried not to let that alarm him too much, as he didn’t want to scare her any more than she was already. Taking a shot at the Colonel was too risky. He lowered his rifle and said, “Romeo’s outside. He wants you to surrender—to completely relinquish Haven to him. He won’t stop this siege until you do, but I can help. All I want in return is my daughter.”
“How is it you can walk among them?”
“I don’t know,” Mason lied. “I guess it’s just a gift.”
“How many of those things are out there?”
“Hundreds—thousands. Truth be told, I don’t know. Let me have my daughter.”
“Not until we can work out a plan to save this place. There’s gotta be some way you can use that gift of yours to save us from annihilation. Can’t you see we have women and children here?”
Mason had never considered the women and children he’d put at risk when he’d driven that tow truck through the gate. He realized that course of action was directed by a lust for revenge rather than a thoughtful strategy with purpose. Now, his daughter was a victim of his carelessness. Yet another weight he would have to carry unless he could find a way to save her.
For the moment, he was at the mercy of the Colonel. He had his sick daughter held hostage, and Mason felt helpless to do as he was told, but he wasn’t going to show his cards; that would reveal his weakness. Instead, he was going to continue to play from a position of strength. It was true, Mason reasoned that the Colonel had his daughter as leverage, but Mason had more leverage on his side with a facility surrounded by Fleshers and a gift to walk among them.
Once again, he found himself in a position where he needed to buy some time to cook up a strategy. No sooner than he had begun to plot, a loud shriek was heard from the front office area where Mason had entered the building. Immediately following, several women and children began to scream in fear. Mason knew they were in the building and soon the place would be flooded with Screamers.
“If anything happens to my daughter, I’ll drive that tow truck into the front of every building in this place. You’ll have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The resources you speak of will be useless when you’re munching on human flesh,” Mason said with a stern voice. “Open the gate.”
The Colonel just stood there with his pistol pointed at Lydia.
“Lydia, listen to
me,” Mason said in a soft tone. “This man intends to hurt us and—”
The Colonel interrupted Mason, “Shut your mouth, Mason! I don’t intend on hurting this little girl.”
“Then lower your pistol and open the gate.”
The Colonel appeared to be buying time of his own. It became apparent when a Screamer came running down the hall toward the gate, slamming into it. Mason took a deep breath and concentrated on his focus to remain calm. The Flesher was slamming violently into the gate, and Lydia joined the creature’s screams. The Colonel appeared content seeing Mason stand shoulder to shoulder with the monster.
Mason looked at it. It was the woman in the blue dress. Just minutes ago she had been shot in the back, apparently dying in agony as she bled to death from the inside. He couldn’t help but think on the issue as some unanswered questions were starting to make sense. His mind flashed back to his first encounter with the Fleshers. The three Scroungers that he had shot and killed—each had the very same sickness that Lydia seemed to be infected with—and the woman in the blue dress. They all turned after they had died because they died infected, but the others—the others turned when they were killed by Fleshers; they were infected just prior to death.
Mason’s ability to control his emotions was fading rapidly. His eyes were welling with moisture as he looked at Lydia; his precious baby girl was now infected and would inevitably turn undead. The very thought pierced his soul asunder.
The creature that was standing next to him against the gate suddenly lashed out at him. Mason had to use both hands to fight the thing off. It was incredibly strong, much stronger than when it was a living human. Mason was overpowered, and he felt his strength waning as its crushing jaws were snapping towards his neck and face. Resigned to an impending death, Mason turned his head toward Lydia and said, “Baby don’t watch—turn your head away from Daddy. I love—”
His words to Lydia were interrupted by a torrent of gunfire. Mason opened his eyes and saw the Colonel and his men running away with Lydia. The gunfire wasn’t coming from him, somebody else was packing some serious heat.
The creature seemed unfazed as it was being shot; not a single round missed its target. Mason could feel the vibrations of each impact as they struck the creature. The rounds went silent. Mason was barely holding on. If not for the leverage he had on the creature, he would surely already be dead or dying. He heard the swing of a sword and knew his buddy, the preacher, was here. The creature’s head fell to the floor. Mason looked up and saw him extending a hand to help him up. Behind him, Shemika stood with a rifle and a half smile on her face. Mason took him by the hand and he hoisted him to his feet.
“She’s a much more aggressive negotiator than you are,” the preacher joked.
Shemika pushed past him and embraced Mason with a kiss. It was the first time he had kissed a woman in well over two years, and he enjoyed it. Mason cut the sentimental moment short by pushing away and saying, “They have Lydia. She’s on the other side of the gate. I don’t have a key.”
“Every administration office has an access panel on the floor that goes down and leads to other administration offices in other buildings,” the preacher said.
“How do you know that?” Mason asked.
“I used to be a member of Haven, remember?”
“We need to move,” Mason insisted.
“It’ll be dark soon,” Shemika said. “I know we’re so close to getting Lydia back, but if we make a wrong move now, we may throw it away. Let’s think out a plan and act on it at first light.”
Mason didn’t like it, but he agreed to it with a sigh.
The CDC
Cheyenne Mountain Complex
Dr. Carter was up way beyond the curfew. His obsession with the discoveries of the disease pressed him into a corner of his mind where he felt he could not sleep without more answers.
The death of the specimen meant he would no longer be able to conduct real-time research. He needed another living specimen, but there was no way he could leave the fortress without a pass authorized by the Secretary of Defense or his designee, General Chance. He felt he was forced to experiment on the carrier candidates, but how could he do this without them reporting his activities to command?
Dr. Carter went to bed that night and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He considered putting one of the carriers into a medically induced coma and lying to his team about the condition of the carrier. He thought about telling them the carrier must have had an adverse reaction to the infection, but he realized he was working with a team of doctors that might discover the truth. Initially, he rejected the idea and lay there for another hour trying to justify the idea. Eventually, he gave in to his own desires and forsook his conscience.
He left his dorm room and went back to the lab. It was guarded by two soldiers, but he told them he had forgotten to check on the condition of the quarantined soldiers.
Dr. Carter geared up from head to toe in his hazmat suit and went through the rigmarole of decontaminating himself. He drew up a syringe of anesthetic and entered the quarantine zone. The soldiers were sound asleep in their custom glass dorm rooms. Dr. Carter swiped his keycard through the electric card reader and then punched in his passcode. The door unlocked and he entered the man’s room. The soldier woke up from his sleep when he heard the door open and asked, “Dr. Carter, is that you?”
“Relax, Private Smith. I just need to give you a new prescription.”
Private Smith looked over at the other soldiers, and they were all fast asleep. “What time is it, Doc?”
“It’s late, but that’s not important. What I need for you to do is cooperate with me or we’ll have to prolong the quarantine. This here syringe holds the answers to what has been ailing you.”
Private Smith surrendered to Dr. Carter’s will and rolled up his sleeve, exposing a nice vein in the bend of his right arm. Dr. Carter injected the anesthetic into his unwitting candidate then stepped out, being careful to lock the door behind him.
Private Smith sat there looking at the doctor, who was watching him from the outside of his transparent room as everything became dark and faded into blackness.
“Goodnight, Private. This is for a cure. I hope you understand,” he said to the man as he fell backwards onto his bed.
Entry Nine
“Lydia, I’m okay. This time Shemika and my new friend, the preacher, saved me. I don’t even know his name. I have been so concerned with finding you that I have forgotten my manners. I really need to ask him for a name instead of just calling him preacher. I’m sure he doesn’t mind, but I’m guessing he’d much rather be called by his name.
“Shemika said she killed one of the bad guys that was trying to capture her. After that, she found the preacher and Romeo sitting on the wall. Romeo is the name of the guy that runs the Order, what used to be a society of thugs and brigands. Anyway, Shemika said taking out Romeo was like shooting a duck on the water.
“Apparently, Romeo was in the middle of raiding Haven when I unintentionally interrupted his little siege. Of course, I didn’t know you were here when I did that; that’s not an excuse, though. I knew women and children were here, but I was careless in my actions; I placed you in danger by doing that, and I am sorry. I should put more focus on the way my actions affect others when I make big moves.
“It was good to see you, but I wish the circumstances were different. The last thing you saw was me fighting off a monster. Up until now, I have been trying to figure out how they can be killed. I’ve never had a sword, or else it might have come to mind to try that. That always seemed to work in the movies, and it makes perfect sense. What creature can survive without a head? Oh yeah, a cockroach. Well, cross these things off as being human cockroaches.
“The others are bedding down for the night. We used a key we got from a sentry to secure the front door. We had to move quickly to get the dead outside before they turned. We searched the area and made sure there were no more threats. We even had time to t
est the keys on the big gate that separated us. It worked! Not only that, but there is another key on the ring that opens a hatch on the floor. The preacher said it will lead me to you. I plan on finding you first thing in the morning. I hope you sleep well tonight. I know you’ve been through a lot. PS, Shemika kissed me and I liked it.”
The CDC
Cheyenne Mountain Complex
Every morning General Chance had a meeting of executives, which involved every ranking member of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Every officer had an assigned secretary that would generate a morning report that covered activities on a twenty-four-hour timeframe. So when Dr. Evans sat down at the meeting and opened her daily briefing folder, she was shocked to see that Dr. Carter had worked well beyond the designated time that she had allotted to him. In fact, not only did he stay in the lab several hours beyond that time, but he had also left and returned to the lab at 3:36 a.m.
Among the reports in her file, she found a readout of the keycard access times. Dr. Carter not only accessed the labs after hours, but accessed a quarantined soldier’s dorm, risking the contamination of more areas and potentially infecting himself and many others. Her anger was kindled against Dr. Carter, and she wanted to leave the morning briefing to investigate the matter, but as she stood up, the general walked in, so she sat back down and patiently waited for the meeting to run its course.
Several minutes into the meeting, the general could see that Dr. Evans was preoccupied with something. “Dr. Evans, is something distracting you?” General Chance asked, calling her out in front of the entire room.
“No, sir.”
He could tell that she wasn’t be completely honest. It wasn’t like her to look so distant during his morning briefings. He cast the matter aside and continued with the meeting. When it was done, she grabbed her file folder and quickly stood up and headed for the door.
“Dr. Evans, a word, please,” he said, catching her before she reached the door.
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