Zombie Squad

by K. H. Graham

  “While the rules here are lax,” Shelby said, “there are a few that your neighbors would likely be picky about. Try to keep the noise to a minimum. No partying.”

  “Bummer,” James said sarcastically.

  “If you need anything, there’s a phone in the common area in the main building. Just push the pound sign and you’ll be connected to whoever is running the desk. Please try not to use it for frivolous things, though.”

  Shelby hunted through her key ring and pulled three keys off. She sat them on the bed and looked up the Nick, James, and Katherine with a smile.

  “As it so happens, I’m running the desk today. So if there is anything you need to get settled in, just let me know.”

  “I do have a question,” James said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ogden mentioned breakfast. When do we get that?”

  Nick smiled, but realized that he was starving. They’d snacked on crackers and water on the way back from Houston but having Griffith moaning and feverish in the back seat had killed any sort of appetite they might have had.

  “Absolutely,” Shelby said. “Follow me and I’ll show you to the cafeteria.”

  They each picked up a key from the bed and followed Shelby outside. As they walked back across the lawn to the main building, Nick once again looked out at the early risers. They all seemed out of place, like suspicious characters in a melodramatic spy movie.

  Nick didn’t stare at any of them, but he didn’t need to. Something felt wrong here. He wondered, in a situation like this where the world was a much different place, where the line was drawn between being a resident of a place like this and being a prisoner.

  Wherever that line was, he felt that they were perched upon it and falling quickly to one side.

  Even as he walked behind Shelby with all of the freedom and safety he could have ever hoped for since that fateful day two years ago, he didn’t feel very at home at all.

  He did, in fact, feel like a prisoner.

  22

  The day passed in a surreal blur. The breakfast was surprisingly good and all three of them ate to the point of being stuffed. Eggs, fat fluffy pancakes, and fruit. It had all come from military stock. Nick could detect the taste of military-grade food pretty quickly. The fruit had likely been frozen for years and the mix to make the pancakes probably came from a surplus sized box that had sat in a warehouse with thousands of other identical boxes. Still, it was delicious and Nick had to make himself stop eating.

  When breakfast was over, they walked back to their rooms and as they unlocked their doors, they all shared an apprehensive look.

  “This doesn’t feel right, does it?” Katherine asked.

  “No,” Nick admitted. “But we’ll be back out there soon.”

  “And are we supposed to be looking forward to that?” James asked. “Hell…do we want to be here among the old enemy or out there fighting the ramblers?”

  “Zombies,” Katherine chided.

  “Whatever.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Nick said. “Get some sleep, guys. Let’s meet in my room at five this afternoon and try to get a gauge on things. Sound good?”

  Katherine and James nodded their agreement as they both stepped into their new homes. Nick listened to their doors close and then walked into his own room. He had taken the one at the very end for no real reason at all. When he stepped inside, he looked to the small clock hanging on the wall over the door. The morning was dwindling away, the hour hand inching towards the nine.

  He went to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. It was the first real shower he’d had in over two years. There had been a shower on the houseboat, but the water pressure was pathetic and the closest it got to hot was on the cold side of lukewarm.

  He stayed under the water until his fingers grew pruny. He dried himself off and didn’t bother digging into his little bag for a change of clothes. He fell to the bed naked and was asleep in less than thirty seconds.

  ***

  His hopes of sleeping until five were dashed. A knocking at the door sprung him awake and when he sat up, he looked directly to the clock. It was 2:43. Apparently, either James or Katherine had some trouble sleeping.

  Nick tugged a pair of boxers out of his bag (briefly wondering how laundry worked around here and how he could maybe get some more clothes). He then slid on his jeans and answered the door.

  The person on the other side was not James or Katherine. It was Shelby Kent. She looked worried and slightly on edge about something. The cheer that had been coming off of her in waves earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen.

  “Sorry to bother you,” she said. “I know you need your rest, but I was asked to come get you and your friends.”

  “It’s okay. What’s up?”

  “There’s been a development with Sergeant Griffith.”

  “What is it? Did he…,”

  “Oh, no. He’s mostly fine. He’s come around quite a bit since noon. He’s still weak, of course. But he asked to speak to you, James, and Katherine.”

  “Oh.”

  “Would you mind speaking with him? I think he just wants to express his gratitude.”

  Nick rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes and said, “Yeah. Let me get them. We’ll meet you in the command center in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let Colonel Ogden know.”

  Nick closed the door on Shelby and finished getting dressed. He then gathered up James and Katherine (James still half asleep as they crossed the lawn for the main building) and they went into the main building. As they passed the front desk, a bored-looking man nodded curtly to them as they headed for the elevators. Nick wondered where Shelby’s desk was and why this front desk wasn’t for admin services. It was another small red flag waving in the back of Nick’s mind.

  They took the elevator down to the control room and when the doors dinged closed, James seemed to finally come to.

  “My bed’s nice,” he said. “Soft. Warm. I miss it already.”

  “You can get back to it soon,” Nick said. “Griffith got bitten trying to help me get you two out here. The least we can do is talk to him.”

  “And let him thank us for saving his life,” James added.

  “No need to milk that when we talk to him,” Nick said.

  “James has a point,” Katherine added. “He seems like a good guy and all, but we could have just left him, you know.”

  “Are you serious right now?” Nick asked.

  “If your plan was to get the three of us back together and then run things behind Ogden’s back, then leaving Griffith in the street with the zombies would have been a nice quick way to get it done,” she said. “It would have saved us this creepy ass trip directly into the heart of darkness.”

  “But that’s just it,” Nick said as the elevator came to a stop. “We’re at the heart. Where we can kill it more efficiently by learning all we can.”

  The doors slid open and they walked out into the large room that Nick had come to call the command center. It looked haphazard and barely hanging together, but he was pretty sure Ogden ran a tight ship. This room was the central hub where everything happened. The busy bodies were still at the table, Ogden standing at the end with a nervous look on his face. When he saw them, he waved them over.

  “I tried to change his mind,” Ogden said, instantly leading them away from the table and back to the elevators. The man moved quickly, nearly getting them back to the elevator before the doors had fully closed. He pressed the button like a man in a fight and then stepped on. He then pressed the button for the fifth floor, one floor below them. He looked as if he was being severely inconvenienced and making one hell of an effort to make sure they knew it.

  “It’s okay,” Nick said, following him. “He was a huge help. A great soldier.”

  “He insisted on talking to you and I felt like you owed him that much.”

  Nick said nothing, keeping quiet against the anger as Ogden once again started tal
king down to him.

  “You understand that I’m busy as hell right now,” Ogden said. “I’m in the middle of planning your first assignment while overseeing the details and science crap behind Griffith’s recovery. So I’m simply going to walk you to the nurse’s station to clear you, get Griffith’s most up to date stats, and then head back up. I assume you’re good to go from there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course,” James said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “We can even ride on elevators by ourselves. For real. Mommy lets us.”

  Ogden gave James a cold stare that seemed to drop the temperature in the elevator. They came to a stop and the doors opened up onto a sparkling white wall. A few people milled about ahead of them, some in lab coats but most in casual dress.

  Ogden led them down the hall to a small counter. Two women sat behind it, entering data into two computers.

  “Ladies,” Ogden said, “this is Nick Blackwell and his team. Please allow him access to Sergeant Griffith. Give them whatever they need but don’t let them overstay their welcome.”

  “Curfew,” James whispered into Nick’s ear. “He means curfew.”

  “Griffith needs his rest,” Ogden said as he started walking away. “Make it quick. And please, come see me in my office tomorrow morning at seven o’ clock sharp for a full debrief of your trip.”

  Nick didn’t bother with a reply. “Where is he?” he asked the ladies behind the counter.

  “At the end of the hallway, take a left. He’s in the big room with the glass walls.”

  “Thanks.”

  They walked down the hallway, Nick taking in all of the details he could. A quick glance to James and Katherine showed him that they were doing the same thing. Every detail was key in sizing up just what the hell was going on here. Given everything they knew about how everything had potentially started two years ago, Nick found it hard to believe that there was nothing sinister going on undercover in Ogden’s little compound.

  However, there wasn’t much to see in the med wing. There were smaller rooms with typical patients. All the doors were either closed or just slightly cracked. Nick counted twelve rooms, eight of which were occupied. He watched as James actually took a peek at one of the clipboards along the doorway to one of the rooms, not bothering to check to see if he was being watched.

  “Mr. Gilmore has appendicitis,” James said after a moment of reading. “He’s recovering wonderfully.”

  Nick wanted to scold him for his aloofness but didn’t see the point. What harm was any of his joking or antics doing in the long run? What was Ogden going to do? Kick them out?

  They came to the end of the hallway and took a left, as they had been instructed. Almost right away, the new hall dead ended several feet ahead. A large glass wall showed the interior of a featureless room. A hospital bed sat in the center of it. A series of wires, tubes, and IVs were all attached to the bed, the monitors by it, and the patient in the bed.

  Griffith looked much better. He had regained most of his color and his eyes widened slightly when he saw the three of them approaching the door. As Nick walked into the room, Griffith seemed to grow slightly agitated. He made a hissing noise that was almost identical to that of a threatened snake.

  Nick froze, as did Katherine and James behind him.

  “We were told you wanted to see us,” Nick said.

  Griffith responded with a nod. He then started to make the hissing noise again. Nick took a single step forward and realized it wasn’t hissing. It was whispering.

  He took a few more steps forward, now no more than five feet away from Griffith. He rolled his eyes toward Nick slowly and when he whispered this time, Nick could hear him.

  “Camera in the corner,” he whispered. “Audio capabilities not so good but…no chances. You understand?”

  Nick nodded, wanting to turn and look for the camera but also not wanting to give himself away.

  There was a single metal stool tucked under Griffith’s bad, the type doctors often sat on in examination rooms. Nick slid it out and figured he’d play along. He took a seat and leaned closer to Griffith, doing his best to seem like a concerned friend that was simply leaning towards Griffith for comfort. He then added to the ruse by speaking out loud.

  “Griffith. Hey, can you hear me, man?”

  “The things you said in the truck,” Griffith said in that hushed hissing whisper. “Operation Zephyr. The information in the leaks. Was it true?”

  Nick nodded softly, not wanting it to be obvious. He looked back at James and Katherine and saw that Katherine had caught on to what was happening. She was standing by his right shoulder, trying to block most of Griffith. As Nick looked to her, he saw that the camera was in the corner behind Katherine and that she was trying to strategically block it.

  “Then I need to say I’m sorry,” Griffith said. “For my part in it all. Ogden has a plan. He’ll have you either imprisoned or terminated after you’ve done his work for him. I didn’t know about the things before…the things the Night Hawks found.”

  Nick said nothing. It was actually hurting him to watch Griffith speak. Yes, he looked much better but it was obvious that the mere act of speaking was taking its toll on him. “Griffith,” he said again, loudly. “Come on, man. You called for us, so talk to me. How are you doing?”

  “Feeling better,” Griffith said, still in his raspy whisper. “But something’s not right. I feel it in my stomach and my head. This vaccine…I don’t think it’s what they all think it is.”

  It was frustrating not to be able to communicate with him openly. Nick had assumed that Ogden had started his plan with some sort of endgame in mind for him, so Griffith’s news wasn’t all that startling. Still, there was valuable information he needed to get and he wanted it very quickly—certainly before Ogden could send them out on one of his missions.

  Especially before they were sent out in search of President Ames.

  “I’ll help you any way I can,” Griffith whispered. “Might even ask Ogden if I can join you, pretending to be a spy. I think you’re safe for now, though. He won’t try anything until he retrieves the President. And there’s someone else he wants…some other figure but he wouldn’t tell us who.”

  “Who—” Nick started to say but Griffith shook his head.

  “Go now,” he said. “Might seem suspicious.”

  Nick stood up, wanting the scene to look as natural as possible to anyone that might be looking at the camera’s feed.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me,” Nick said, “but just let us know if you want to see us again. I hope you feel better soon.”

  With that, Nick turned away and headed back for the door. Katherine and James did the same, not bothering to say a word. As he made his way through the door, Nick looked back towards the far right corner of the room where a small white camera looked down onto them. He imagined Ogden or one of his sycophants looking into the room as they made their exit and it made him furious.

  Monsters outside and monsters inside, too, he thought.

  He led his small team back through the medical wing, towards the elevators and their new homes above.

  23

  The trio that Katherine Laslo had so lovingly dubbed the Zombie Squad ate dinner together in the small cafeteria on the second floor of the main building shortly after five o’ clock that afternoon. There were a dozen or so others eating at the same time, spread out around several tables. They cast wary glances at the three new occupants, as if they were aliens that were here to probe them and change their way of life.

  Because of the close scrutiny, they didn’t speak in the cafeteria. They left together, heading back to their rooms shortly after six thirty, just as night started to fall. They walked across the lawn like the nerdy kids at school that had been ousted by their peers but were determined to stick together.

  Nick stopped outside of his door, looking up and down the strip of lawn around them. With the exception of a woman carrying a few DVDs back to the main buildin
g, there was no one else milling around.

  “We need to talk,” Nick said, speaking quietly. “And I think we need to do it here, outside the rooms. If what Griffith said about Ogden is true—about his plans to do away with us when this is all said and done—I’m going to assume he’s keeping tabs on us. It might seem paranoid, but I’m not taking chances.”

  “So we shouldn’t talk to one another in our rooms, huh?” James said.

  “Probably not,” Nick said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he had them bugged.”

  “So what did you gather from what Griffith said?” Katherine asked. “What do you think he meant by the vaccine isn’t what everyone thinks?”

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “But seeing as how he now has it in his bloodstream and he knows what it does, I believe him.”

  “You don’t think him trying to side with us is something Ogden set him up to do?” James asked.

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it. I know it sounds cheesy, but when he mentioned Operation Zephyr, he seemed…I don’t know…he seemed mad. It was news to him and he seemed pissed.”

  “So what do we do then?” Katherine asked.

  “I’m going to proceed as planned,” Nick said. “I’m going to go on his first assignment and try to get a better understanding of what he’s up to and what we can do to stop it.”

  “You know,” Katherine said, “I do have my laptop. I could probably get into the system here without much of a problem.”

  “Any risk of getting caught?” Nick asked.

  “Very little. Most of what the government was using for system protection came from designs I helped create.”

  “Do it, then,” Nick said. “The more we know before we head out, the better.”

  “Can you find out anything before our meeting with Ogden tomorrow?” James asked.

  “If I can get in, I’ll be in within an hour,” she said. “You boys get your sleep and I’ll burn the midnight oil.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” James said.

  “Thanks, Katherine,” Nick added.