by JE Gurley
“One of the pilots must have been infected and turned. The others opened the hangar door to escape.”
“But they’ve been sealed in here as long as we have,” Anderson reminded him. He looked around the control room at everyone gathered there. “One of us could be next.”
“Yeah, right,” Conyers agreed. “We’re not safe in here.”
Vince looked at the fear in all their eyes. “We’re not safe out there.”
“I’m tired of this crap,” Higgins growled. “If I’m going to die, I want to do it out there. Not here in this damn metal box.”
Vince knew he was losing them. He had kept them inside the base only through the fear that outside was deadly. If death stalked the corridors of Red Rock, then who among them could feel safe. He had one piece of knowledge he had been dreading telling them.
“Only Evers had the code for the main door.”
They stared at him in silence, but Higgins recovered quickly. “You’ve trapped us here, you damned bastard.” Higgins clenched his fists and leaped at Vince. The first blow caught him by surprise, staggering him, but he had not made Technical Sergeant simply on service time. One of the many classes he had taken for merit points had been one in self-defense. He blocked Higgins’ second blow and countered with a solid uppercut to Higgins’ jaw. Higgins fell backwards into Anderson’s arms, who then shoved him back at Vince. This time, Higgins’ anger exploded. He pelted Vince’s head with his fists, yelling incoherently. Vince backed away to make room to maneuver. Instead of using his height advantage, Higgins rushed at Vince blindly, allowing Vince to knee him in the stomach, followed by a heavy double-fisted blow to the back of his neck. Higgins folded like a limp cloth.
Vince fought for breath and stared at the others. They were angry, but cowed by his defeat of the loud-mouthed Higgins. Finally, he said, “We can blow the door to the hangar, but you saw what happened to the pilots. Once we break the seal, there’s no going back. When we go out, we go as a group and armed.” He saw he now had their attention and continued, “We take a couple of vehicles and head for Davis-Monthan. But first, we have to secure the nukes.”
Doyles stepped forward. “Hell, I’ll go if it will get us out of here any faster.”
“Me, too,” Conyers said.
Vince nodded. “Okay. Let me catch my breath and I’ll issue weapons.”
* * * *
As soon as the door opened, the zombie pilot turned to face them, snarling in rage. Vince raised his weapon and fired. The pilot dropped to the concrete with a bullet in its head still clutching the partially eaten severed arm. Vince tried not to look at the grisly remains of the dead pilot. The other two pilots were missing. He tried to close the hangar door, but it would not budge. A closer check of the door mechanism showed why. One of the pilots had gotten off several shots with his pistol, one of which hit the control panel, wrecking the electronics and freezing the door in place. Given time, Vince could have repaired it, but the others were in a hurry. None of them of them wore biohazard suits, deeming it useless if they were going to leave the base anyway. This made getting at the guts of the nukes easier, but his imagination kept returning to the thought of plague viruses growing in his chest with each unfiltered breath. If the plague were still active, they would all probably die after their short burst of freedom.
He worked as quickly as he could to deactivate the nukes and lock their firing mechanisms from accidental detonation, but it was a delicate procedure with a mushroom cloud being the result of any error. Sweat beaded his forehead, dripping into his eyes and hampering his work.
“Hurry it up, Vince,” Conyers urged. Her face was a mask of unconcealed fear. “I hear noises out there.”
“Almost finished,” Vince replied, groaning as he leaned over to screw on the last access plate. He rolled the nuke on its wheeled cart to the wall beside the others. Only Evers had the code for the secure arms vault, and he felt queasy about leaving nuclear weapons out in the open, even deactivated ones. He found a tarp and threw it over them, hiding them from view the best he could. The others had vetoed the idea of bringing the nukes back into the base and he knew his rank made little difference to them now.
“Done,” he said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
“Good, we’ve got company.”
A zombie entered the open hangar door. It had been dead for a long time. Strips of gray flesh dangled like fringe from its arms. Through its ragged shirt, Vince could see the ends of ribs protruding from its chest. Still it moved. Vince wondered how such a creature could move with so much damage. Doyles fired at it with his rifle, hitting it several times, but the creature did not slow down. Vince stared at the approaching zombie, mesmerized by the thought of a dead person still ambulatory, feeling no pain. To see one close up sent shudders of revulsion through him. They were unnatural beings and like demons, the things of nightmares.
“Move it, Vince,” Conyers said.
A second creature entered the hangar, one of the pilots still wearing his flight suit. Half of his right arm was missing.
“Son of a bitch,” Conyers yelled. Her face had grown pale and she held one trembling hand to her mouth. “If they bite you, you turn into one of them.” She dropped her rifle and raced for the hatch leading to the tunnel to the base.
“Pick up your weapon, Conyers!” Vince called out, but she ignored him. Two more shots rang out. He turned to see one zombie hit the floor, half its head missing.
“That stops them,” Doyles said, smiling.
“Let’s go.” Vince grabbed at Doyles’ sleeve to urge him to get moving. He heard Conyers’ muffled sobbing far ahead down the sloping tunnel. Doyles stood just inside the metal door and fired once more at the remaining zombie before Vince slammed the door shut and turned the wheel that closed the hatch door. The C2 they had used to blow the seal now prevented them from locking it. He hoped zombies didn’t know how to open doors.
“Stupid bitch,” Doyles snapped, jerking his head towards the sobbing. “She could have gotten us killed.”
“Forget it.”
“We’re not going out that way,” Doyles said, nodding his head toward the hatch.
“Why not?”
“A dozen more joined the first two. I saw them as you were dogging the door. They were in uniform. Must be the whole damned SAHP crew.”
“Damn.” Vince knew if the helicopter training school were overrun with zombies, it would make their escape more difficult. Of the ten of them, only four had any experience with weapons and Conyers had already flaked out. He thought of the access tunnel from the power plant. “I know another way out.”
Doyles smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
* * * *
They spent two days gathering supplies and preparing to vacate the base. Within those forty-eight hours, four of the crew – Doyles, Conyers, Anderson and Ives – began to show signs of illness. The remaining members, especially Higgins, wanted to abandon their comrades to their eventual fates and leave the base.
“We’ve all been vaccinated,” Vince reminded them. “They may pull through.”
“Fat chance of that,” Higgins shot at Vince. “We should have left days ago, but you wouldn’t let us. No, you had to disarm the nukes. Prepare, you said. How the hell do you prepare for this?”
“I have to go,” Mears added. “My daughter needs me.”
Vince threw up his hands in frustration. “Okay. Okay. I give up. You win. We leave tonight. We follow the tunnel to the power plant. If we can’t find a vehicle there, we sneak back here to grab one and head to Davis-Monthan. Whatever happens, we’re still in the Air Force. We’ll certainly be better off there than wandering around separately.”
“As long as I can go home first,” Liz said.
“Get some sleep. We’ll meet here at 1900 hours.”
He watched them leave for their quarters and shook his head. Discipline had fallen by the wayside. Fear had made them forget their training. Even if they abandoned Red Roc
k, their country still needed them. He, for one, would be glad to reach Davis-Monthan and find out just what was happening in the rest of the country.
Up for the last forty-eight hours, Vince was too exhausted to think clearly and knew he would need all his faculties to play shepherd to his little flock of lost sheep. After checking up on his four ill wards, he returned to his quarters and lay down for a nap. Aside from the antibiotics he had administered to the sick, there was little more he could do. Sleep would not come. He tossed and turned, replaying each decision he had made since the death of Major Evers to see if it had been the right one. No classes in leadership or operations manual could cope with the present crisis. He was stabbing a stick in a hornet’s nest hoping they did not attack.
A muted scream, followed by a shot, brought him back to reality. He headed for the door, remembered his pistol, returned and grabbed it from beside the bed and strapped it on. He stepped out into a corridor that was empty and dark except for the pale amber glow of the emergency lighting. More shots rang out from around the corner. As he raced in that direction, Liz Mears turned the corner and slammed into him, almost falling backwards. She stared at him with an expression of stark terror twisting her face.
“It’s Conyers,” she gasped. “She’s one of them.”
Vince grabbed her shoulders and shook her, “One of them who?”
“Them! A zombie.”
When he released her, Mears stumbled, righted herself and raced off down the corridor. Vince watched her run away and turned his attention back to the noises coming from around the corner. His first view was of Conyers and Ives, both deathly pale in the emergency lights, attacking Lindsay, whom they had backed into a corner and he was shooting at them with no effect.
“Shoot them in the head!” Vince yelled, but Lindsay was in a state of panic and ignored him. Lindsay continued firing until he ran out of ammunition. Vince didn’t hesitate, drawing his pistol and shooting Conyers in the side of the head. Blood sprayed over Lindsay as Conyers fell, but he couldn’t get a clear shot at Ives as Lindsay struggled to shove her away.
Higgins rushed from a room with Anderson close on his heels.
“This way!” Vince yelled, but Anderson caught the slower moving Higgins and dragged him to the ground. Higgins’ screamed and beat at Anderson’s head with his fists as Anderson sank his teeth into Higgins’ neck and ripped out a large chunk of flesh. Vince took careful aim and shot Anderson in the head, but it was too late for Higgins. He lay on the floor surrounded by a pool of his own blood, gasping out the last moments of his life.
Lindsay had managed to push Ives away. He looked at Vince for help, but Ives was too quick. She leaped at Lindsay and clamped her legs around his waist as she clawed at his face. Before Vince could go to Lindsay’s aid, Doyles stepped into the corridor and glanced at Vince, snarling like an animal. Perhaps he could have stopped Doyles; he had two bullets left, but looking at two people who had been but were now resurrected creatures, fear struck Vince for the first time in his life, a fear so strong it threatened to immobilize him. The look of pure animal madness in Doyles’ eyes bothered him more than the fact that Doyles was now a zombie. Doyles’ eyes looked demonic, like a man possessed.
Vince ran. He found Mears standing in the center of control center, sobbing and spinning around trying to decide which way to run.
“Have you been bitten?” he asked her.
When she did not respond, he slapped her face. She looked at him blankly; then focused on his face.
“Have you been bitten?” he repeated.
She shook her head, but her eyes darted about in fear.
“Come with me,” he said.
When she did not move, Vince took Mears’ arm and dragged her to the access panel behind the control room stations. They followed the narrow space as it wound through the bowels of the base until they reached the electrical room.
“I’ll go first,” he told her. In the distance, he heard sickening screams and the animal growls of the zombies who had once been his friends. He could no nothing for them. He opened the door to the electrical room, wincing when the door squeaked. The room was clear. He motioned to Mears to join him and began punching in the access code. The loud chirp of the lock as it opened startled Mears. He rechecked the corridor outside to make sure no zombies had heard them. Too busy munching on their friends, he thought. He shoved Mears into the access tunnel, followed her inside and closed the door behind them. He reset the code of the lock to seal the door. Now they were safe from their friends, but a whole, mad world outside the base waited for them.
The half-mile long tunnel traveled beneath I-10 and the tracks of the Union Pacific railway and emerged in a disguised storm drain just beyond the tank farm supplying fuel for the power plant. Vince noticed the rapid increase in temperature first; then the black smoke entering through the steel grate of the drain.
Coughing from the irritating smoke, he turned to Lisa, “The power plant is on fire. Better cover your mouth and nose.”
She took her cap and held it to her lower face. Vince covered his with a handkerchief. The smoke burned his eyes, making them water. The steel grate was hot as he pushed it aside and they emerged into the middle of a blazing inferno.
16
Twice in the past three days, Elliot Samuels and the two soldiers had descended the mountain on the ski lift to ferry supplies back up to the cabin. He did not ask for nor did anyone else volunteer to accompany him. Like Erin, the memory of the massacre at the base was too fresh in their minds. Strangely, no one blamed her for the deaths, even though they all knew she had been the one that had released the zombies. Their part in the ruse played upon their minds, accepting some of her guilt upon themselves for keeping their silence. She did not ask for their forgiveness fearing it would not be forthcoming. Eight people – that was all the prisoners she knew of that escaped the melee, if indeed, they had managed to find a safe shelter off the mountain. Samuels had not commented on what they had found at the base on their first trip back, other than to say, at least one other truck was missing. How many military personnel had escaped, he did not know.
The cabin was small and cramped, but they accepted the lack of comfort as a small price to pay for their lives. The large fireplace provided heat with an entire forest half a mile away to supply firewood. Water was no problem. Snow provided an ample source for now, and in the summer, if they remained there that long, a nearby stream would see to their needs. Food was the only concern, but Samuels seemed determined to scavenge every pound of it he could from the base.
Erin had noticed a change in Samuels since the attack. It was as if a heavy load had lifted from his shoulders. His self-appointed responsibility for them seemed insignificant compared to the awesome burden of hiding the fact that the military were keeping immune humans prisoner as a source of blood for the vaccine upon which they had been laboring. She was not yet certain that she trusted him, but his relief seemed genuine.
She stood on a boulder on the edge of the cliff and scanned the trail and the side of the mountain through a pair of binoculars. The ski lift had shut down an hour earlier and Samuels and his men were due back soon. The wind was biting and her frozen vigilance was making her fingers numb.
At first, there was hope that the military would send a helicopter to rescue them, but Samuels had quickly squelched that idea. No message had gone out. Amid the confusion and turmoil, it could be weeks before their lack of communication drew anyone’s attention. Essentially, they were on their own.
Erin heard Susan walk up behind her. Without turning, she said, “No sign of them yet. How are the others?”
“They’re okay, grumbling about the lack of privacy, but okay.”
She nodded. “If that’s all they’ve got to worry about, they’ll be all right.”
“What about you?” Susan asked.
Erin took a moment to consider how to answer. “I failed miserably, didn’t I?”
Susan leaned against the side of the bo
ulder. Erin glanced down at her wondering how Susan always managed to look like a model even dressed in a cast off parka too large for her. “No, you did what was right,” she said. “You set them free.”
Erin knew she was talking about the prisoners, but the statement still jolted her. “I should have planned better. I thought they would be in better shape. I didn’t know there were so many,” she admitted. “All those lives lost. My fault.”
“They deserved it,” Susan replied, her face hard and grim. Erin realized she had meant the army personnel.
“Maybe, but I didn’t have the right to punish them. I made a mistake.”
Susan’s face softened. “Don’t second guess yourself. If not for you all of those people would have died. You gave some of them a chance, and more might have gotten away.”
Erin knew Susan meant to console her, but she also knew no one else had made it out alive. The patients did not have time to come around from their sedatives before the zombies broke in. At best, they had died without suffering. She decided to change the subject.
“What do you think of Samuels?”
Susan perked up. “He seems happier now. I think he hated keeping secrets from us.”
Erin looked back down the valley through the binoculars. “How do you know he still isn’t?”
Susan tilted her head and asked, “What do you mean?”
Erin shrugged which was a gesture barely noticeable in her too large heavy coat. Was she being overly suspicious? “I’m not sure. I guess I’m still leery of trusting him.”
Susan pursed her lips in a pout. “Give him a chance, at least.”
Susan was still enamored with Samuels, but Erin did not relent. “I’ll keep an open mind, but I’m still going to keep an eye on him.” She heard loud voices behind them coming from the cabin. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s Dale again. Kevin keeps hiding the cigarettes. He says Dale is smoking too many.”