by David Achord
“Well, I ain’t staying here by myself,” Flash said.
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Keep the truck running and you’ll be nice and warm.”
“Oh, hell no. I’m coming with.”
“You sure?” I asked and gestured at Joker. “We’ve done this a few times. We’re going to be running hard and we’re not taking prisoners.”
“Damn right I’m sure,” he replied.
I looked momentarily at Joker and gave a small grin. “They tell me they call you Flash because you can run fast.”
“Fast like Flash Gordon, baby,” he said.
I shrugged, got my machete, and strapped it across my back.
“Alright, stay close, but don’t get too close and jam us up,” I said and made a head nod to Joker. We took off running before Flash had a chance to respond.
We jogged through the snow and woods for several minutes before I stopped and dropped to a crouch. Flash and Joker caught up and dropped down beside me. I’ll give him credit, he wasn’t breathing any harder than Joker or me. Joker faced back the way we came, scanning with the ACOG on his assault rifle. Flash looked at me questioningly. I pointed to my ear and then toward the direction where I believed they were heading. Soon, we heard the distant crack of a tree limb breaking.
“Got ‘em,” I whispered and the three of us took off. We were close now.
We soon came to a clearing which was the backyard of an abandoned house. There were two dead zeds with a crossbow bolt sticking out of their eye sockets. There were additional tracks circling around to the front. Before we could follow, the air was pierced with a series of pained screams.
“Watch my back,” I whispered and ran toward the side of the house. When I peeked around, I saw ten of them ravaging a person like a pack of rabid dogs. One of them had managed to pull up the person’s jacket. The sight of exposed skin worked them into a frenzy and they were butting heads as they all dived in to take a bite. I took aim and began firing. I killed three of them instantly. Joker joined in and killed two more. Flash shot the sixth one before I stopped him.
“Hold your fire!” I ordered. He looked at me questioningly, but to his credit, he immediately stopped shooting. I leaned my rifle up against the house and pulled my machete out.
Joker grinned. “Here we go,” he said.
“What?” Flash asked in confusion.
The remaining six zombies were too involved in the feeding frenzy to even hear the gunshots or notice their friends being killed. All except one of them. He stood and charged me. I sidestepped and whipped out a short kick to his knee. He was oblivious to any pain, but it did cause him to stumble. When he turned back toward me, he glowered at me with eyes as black as his leathered skin.
I feinted right, ducked back left, and brought the machete upward. The blade’s impact snapped his head back and took his lower jaw off. I pulled it free and his jaw fell slack. Only a couple of pieces of sinew kept it from coming completely off.
I delivered another kick, to the back of his knee this time. He stumbled and fell to his back, his hands reaching toward me as he snarled. I took a baseball swing and the blade dug into both hands at the wrists. Working it free, I swung a few more times until I successfully cut his hands off.
I then turned my attention to the final five. I quickly brought the machete down on the backs of the necks of three of them. Joker couldn’t stand it any longer. He took his Bowie knife and stabbed the last two through the eye sockets. It was over in under ten seconds.
“Damn,” Flash muttered.
“Good stuff,” Joker said.
Flash stood there in a mixture of anxiety and bemusement as we cleaned the obsidian-colored blood off of our blades with snow. I wiped my blade dry on one of the dead zed’s pants and squatted down beside the victim. He was chewed up, and I thought he was dead, but then he coughed.
“Oh my God, he’s still alive,” Flash said.
The two of them walked over and squatted beside me. The hapless victim was a teenage boy, from what I could tell. His face had been badly mauled and they’d bitten out massive chunks of meat from his abdominal area and had practically disemboweled him before we could intervene. Surprisingly, he was still alive. His eyes fluttered and he looked up at me.
“Zach?” the boy said. It took a moment, but then I realized I recognized him.
“Eugene, right?” I asked.
He nodded and coughed up some frothy blood. I glanced over at Joker and Flash. Joker knew, I could see it in his eyes.
“Eugene, I’m going to make sure you get back to your family, okay?”
He looked at me in desperation, but there was no hope for him. I put one hand over his eyes and pulled my handgun with my other. The roar of the 45 was deafening and left a sizeable hole in his forehead. I used some more snow to wipe the spray of blood off of my hands and holstered up before standing. Flash’s confusion had deepened.
“There was no hope for him,” I explained. “I could have saved a bullet and stabbed him through the eye, but I wanted to put him out as painlessly as possible.”
“You knew him?” he asked.
“Yeah, he’s with a group that lives nearby. We’ll carry him back to the truck and take him home.”
Flash slowly nodded in understanding. The zed I left alive emitted a snarl and began trying to crawl toward us. When Flash saw him, he became enraged.
“You piece of shit,” he growled, walked over, and started stomping on his head. He continued stomping until it was obvious he was now truly dead, but Flash put in a couple of additional stomps for good measure. He then looked at me in a mixture of rage and confusion.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” he asked.
“I wanted him to suffer,” I said.
Flash stared back down at the lifeless zombie. “Oh.”
He then looked around, probably wondering if there were any others around. Spotting something in the snow several feet away, he walked over and picked it up. He held it up and rejoined us.
“A crossbow,” he said. “That kid must have been out hunting and got jumped by those zombies.”
“Yeah, I’d say you’re right on the money.”
Eugene couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. I’d spoken to him and his father a couple of times. He seemed like a good kid. I could only imagine why he was out hunting by himself. I pulled his shirt and jacket down and hoisted him onto my shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“Grab my rifle and keep an eye out,” I said. Flash quickly complied.
It took us several minutes of backtracking. I had not realized how far we’d traveled, and by the time we got within eyesight of the truck, I was winded and had worked up a good sweat.
“Heads up,” Joker said under his breath as we walked through the field toward the truck.
There were three men waiting on us. I recognized them all. They had lived at Weather for a short time before we relocated them to a couple of fortified houses near the community once known as Petersville. We walked up and, as gently as I could, I put the boy down on the roadway. Eugene’s father emitted an anguished wail.
“Where’d you find him, Zach?” one of them asked. Everyone knew him as Slick, on account of back before, he was a slick used car salesman.
I pointed at the tracks, which were now trampled, and explained how we spotted them running across the road and gave chase. Slick furrowed his brow and bit his lower lip.
“We were supposed to go hunting together, but he got up early and took off on his own,” he said, his voice breaking.
Suddenly, the third man cursed. He’d been looking over Eugene and stood suddenly. “He’s got a bullet hole in his head,” he said, like he was accusing us of murder.
“That’s right, he does. He was bitten several times. It was the humane thing to do.”
“Bullshit,” he said and pointed at the kid’s face. “There’s only a couple of bites and he’s been vaccinated. He would’ve lived.”
I glanced at Flash, who w
as once again looking anxious, before fixing the man with a cold stare. “Lift his jacket up,” I directed.
Eugene’s father, who had been sitting in the road sobbing in anguish, lifted up his son’s jacket. At the sight of the carnage done, he was wracked with a fresh wave of grief.
The man who was so ready to accuse us of murder was now dumbfounded. He forgot about us, sat beside Eugene’s father, and tried to console him. I got Slick’s attention and motioned for him toward the front of our truck away from the other two.
“There’s nothing we could’ve done,” I said.
“I know, Zach. Frankly, I’m surprised you stopped and followed them. Say, what brings you out on a shitty day like this anyway?”
“It looks like we’ve lost Ohio,” I said and explained, but I left out the part about the possibly tainted vaccines.
“Man, that sucks,” he said.
“Yeah. How’re things going with your people?” I asked.
“We’re doing okay, except for this. Stu’s wife gave birth last week to a healthy boy. We’re a little short on supplies, but otherwise, we’re okay.”
I nodded. “I imagine Johnny will be wanting to get home and bury him, so we won’t keep you guys. When things get settled, either me or somebody from Weather will bring some supplies up.”
“I appreciate that, Zach. Oh, and please don’t take offense at Stu, he didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Forget about it, I understand. Well, we’ve got to go. You men be careful.”
“Same to you, Zach,” Slick said.
“You know what I think,” Flash said a few minutes after we’d gotten back on the road.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I think all of those stories I’ve heard about you are true.”
Joker let out a belly laugh as he drove.
Chapter 21 - Tainted
“And you believe the vaccines were tainted somehow?” Senator William Rhinehart asked for the third time.
“Yes, that is my belief,” I answered for the third time. When we had returned to Mount Weather, we’d no sooner gotten the truck put away when a runner was sent to inform me the president wanted to meet. So, there I was, once again sitting in the conference room. I’d not even had time to clean up and still had zed goo on me. It was a closed meeting this time. Top secret and all that shit. Only a few people were present; the president, a couple of senators whom the president trusted, and of course, Parvis.
“Alright, let me go over this again. The docs are adamant they are baffled how the two batches became tainted. They are also adamant they adhered to strict protocols to prevent something like this from happening. The results of the blood tests from the infected female were inconclusive. Before anyone asks, I have no evidence that indicates they are lying.”
“So, logic would dictate…” Senator Rhinehart said, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“I know what you’re implying, Senator. Someone sabotaged the batch.”
“Both batches,” Rhinehart corrected. “There were actually two batches, made separately, correct?”
“Correct,” I said in agreement. I honestly don’t know how the man was still alive. He was in his late sixties now and I’d heard rumors the state of his health was in question, but I had to admit his mental acuity was still as sharp as ever.
“Sabotage,” he repeated. “One tainted batch is possible. Two tainted batches, highly improbable. So, we’re looking at a deliberate act of sabotage.”
“I believe so, yes.”
Senator Rhinehart, William to his friends, but he had none, shifted in his seat and leaned forward. “President Stark favors you for a reason, Mister Gunderson. Not only are you an intelligent and resourceful young man, you know how to fix problems. Am I right, Mister President?”
I looked over at President Stark who made direct eye contact with me.
“Indeed,” he answered.
“So, Mister Gunderson, I’m curious. Who do you think the culprit is?” Rhinehart asked.
“That’s the question of the day,” I responded. “I don’t know who exactly, but let me ask you guys something; do any of you know how to sabotage a batch of vaccines where the recipient instead becomes infected?” I paused only a moment. “I don’t, unless I had access to a sample of the plague.”
“They have samples at Fort Detrick, do they not?” Senator Nelson asked. He’d been unusually quiet during the meeting, not even taking notes, but instead staring intently at me the entire time.
“They do and they are in a secured area. There are only four people who have access.” I counted with my fingers. “General Harlan Fosswell, Captain Harlan Fosswell Junior, Doctor Stephen Kincaid, and Doctor Hiram Smeltzer. It is my understanding that General Fosswell specifically forbade those two new doctors from having access.”
“Interesting,” Senator Nelson said. It was only then he finally stopped staring at me and started fooling with his laptop.
“What are we going to do about this?” Senator Rhinehart asked.
I felt like fixing him with a scowl and asking him, “What’s this we shit?” I never liked Rhinehart. The day after we’d arrived at Weather, I caught his two adult children breaking into our semi-trailer. I ended up whipping their asses, literally. I put a beating on both of them and then whipped their asses with a switch from a tree. He took grave offense and ever since considered me the bad guy.
His son, Paul, was later attacked and killed by zombies. Priss, his daughter, was still here, and still finding new and interesting ways to piss people off. However, the years had tempered any animosity she and I had toward each other. In fact, we had actually become friends, and while her father rarely lifted a finger to perform manual labor, he had a sharp mind and was an integral member of the brain trust of Mount Weather. There would always be a level of animosity between us, but we’d put aside our personal issues for the betterment of our beleaguered society.
“Zach, I’ve read your report, but I think you’re leaving something out,” President Stark said.
“Okay, sir. What do you think I left out?”
“The tone of your report seems to indicate General Fosswell is rather ambivalent to this turn of events,” Rhinehart added.
“He is,” I said. “Or he appears to be. He is either in complete denial or he’s playing his cards close until he can identify the suspect. Frankly, I’m not sure which, but I would like to believe he’s working on it.”
“Do you think Fosswell is a party to the sabotage?” Senator Rhinehart suddenly asked. There seemed to be a silent, collective intake of air. I glanced at Stark, who was staring back. I’d already anticipated this question and had a prepared answer.
“At this time, there is no evidence to either confirm or eliminate either of them as a suspect,” I said.
Rhinehart leaned back in his chair and a small smile worked its way onto his old, wrinkled lips. “Spoken like a true politician,” he said.
I didn’t know if he intended that remark to be a compliment or an insult. I chose not to respond and waited for the next question.
Thirty minutes later, I walked out of the meeting with Parvis. No words were exchanged until we reached his office. He immediately went to his hotplate and put a teapot on the burner.
“Tea?” he asked.
“Yeah, that black blend, if you have it,” I said. It had more caffeine than coffee, a lot more, and it was not all that flavorful, but I liked it for some reason.
Parvis prepared two tea balls and waited for the water to boil. I leaned back in my chair, pondering what we knew about the vaccines, but I found my mind wandering. The office was a mass of organized chaos. Parvis had stacks of files both on his desk and the floor, as did I. There were also multiple dry erase boards which we used to track the progress of all of our ongoing projects. They were full of notes. Parvis observed me looking at them.
“As if we didn’t have enough problems,” he remarked.
“Any thoughts on who may have done it?” I
asked.
He stared at the teapot, not making eye contact. “Well, if not Kincaid or Smeltzer, then who? What about those two other scientists? What are their names?”
“Doctors Douglas Throneberry and Jere Washington,” I said. “I suppose it’s possible they’re the culprits, but what would be their motivation?”
“What indeed?” Parvis responded.
I frowned at him. “You know, I always hate when you answer a question with a question.”
Parvis smiled as he poured the boiling water into each of our mugs. The tea balls bobbed up and down. “Let it steep,” he admonished and sat.
“Alright, without answering my question with a question, how do you think we’re going to be able to find out who did it?”
Parvis took a sip of tea before answering. “You will have to become a detective. At some point, you will need to go back to Detrick and interrogate each scientist. And, dare I say it? Conventional methods may not be effective,” he said.
“You’re not going to be involved in this?” I asked with a small hint of sarcasm.
Parvis sipped some more tea and avoided my question. The implication was clear. When the situation called for harsh measures, it always came down to me. And Fred. He was tacitly telling me we needed to pay another visit to the scientists and get the truth out of them, even if it meant putting a couple of knots in their heads. Rhinehart was probably suggesting the same thing during the meeting.
“In any event, we’re at an impasse until the weather gets better,” he said. “That could be a month or two.”
“Nonsense. That deuce-and-a-half is a beast. We had no problem driving on the roads with it, as long as you drive slowly and don’t be stupid.” In fact, I wondered why it had been so long before I actually discovered the versatility of the lowly Army truck. “We can drive up there anytime we need to,” I added.