She stood, unmoved.
“OK. I have a helicopter, which you know. I could have drugged you and put you on the copter and forced you to take me to Grandma—”
She rose to that. Her own experience being forced to do anything was something he couldn’t know.
He must have seen the anger in her eyes. “No, please! I’m trying to make you see there are a million ways this could go down, but I truly want you as my partner. For God’s sake, I don’t need more enemies.”
She fumed internally but didn’t know what to say. He was speaking the truth, even if she hated him for his insinuation.
“I’m staying because I want to help you find Liam. Once you two are together, and calmed down,” he said with a test of mirth, “we can focus on helping your Grandma. She is the most vulnerable of us all because she will stand out wherever she is.”
“And then you want to run tests on her,” she said with the remains of her anger.
“Yes. I’ll be honest about that. But this time I need to take blood, not inject it. I know my word isn’t worth anything to you, but on my honor that’s the truth. I believe she can help us get this cure correct.”
“But we won’t have anywhere to do your research. We can’t come back here, can we?”
“We’ll have to deal with that when we get there. Maybe there’s a research lab where she is?”
He was fishing for her location. Torn whether to divulge the information or not, she felt she wasn’t quite ready to trust him. At the very least she wanted other people around when she told him. That way he couldn’t drug her, or otherwise coerce her to do his bidding. She didn’t think he was lying about what he was telling her. It all added up in an insane way. And that’s what troubled her the most.
You can’t trust him, girl. N-O, no!
Chapter 7: Run, Girl, Run
Hayes stood to go out the door, but paused and turned back to her.
“Before we go, I have to ask. What do you see in that boy?”
Victoria had been prepared to leave, so it was about the last thing she expected. “Uh, what?”
“Liam. It’s cute how you two found each other in the disaster, but you don’t seem to have much in common, you know? Classy girl in a black dress. An unkempt boy chasing after his Great-Grandma.”
The situation came into focus. It was the middle of the night, in a building that had been cleared by Hayes so he could conduct ‘somewhat-illegal’ experiments in peace. If he wanted to take advantage of her, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him, though she would try. He was married—so he said—but he was also NIS, which was becoming synonymous with doing the least likely thing she could imagine.
That’s not gonna happen.
While he stood at the door, she remained by the video controls, searching for a weapon. He seemed to take that as assent to continue speaking.
“It’s just that...well, you’re so pretty...”
The desk had nothing she could use as a weapon. A red stapler. A small pen. Spiral notebooks.
“When Jane and I got married, it was more or less arranged. We had a few great years. Even had a daughter. But in the organization, the biggest factor in marriage is how the two families can benefit each other. My family had extensive inroads in the medical community. Hers was—”
He smiled at her.
“—actually, that’s classified.” He sighed, with a touch of sadness. She couldn’t tell if it was real, or simulated. “The old habits die hard. I would never do anything to hurt her, even if I don’t love her. And her father saved my ass...”
Hayes went on, describing their relationship in more detail than she really cared to know. The takeaway was that he seemed to be putting himself on the market for romance, which was precisely the wrong thing to do, given her own background. More than that, it was the wrong thing to do to any woman in this situation. That he didn’t see that made her angry at how stupid he was.
“...I guess what I’m saying is that I look at you—a bright future in the medical field—and him and his future in, um, zombie slaying, and I don’t see the draw. You know?”
Hayes hadn’t moved from the door. No weapons magically appeared for her. She wasn’t sure she’d need one, but ‘zombie slayer’ Liam would insist she always have one. The irony of no weapons in the security monitoring station didn’t escape her.
“What, exactly, is your point?” she said defensively.
He studied her. She wondered if he was sizing her up, until he looked at the door itself, then back at her. “Oh! No, it isn’t like that.” He held out his arms and waved her to go through the door. “No, this isn’t a proposition. I’m much too old for you,” he laughed.
“Then what is this all about?”
When they were outside the door in the moonlit hallway, he spoke while she moved to the far side of the door. She was free to run if she wanted.
“My point is very simple. You don’t need Liam, right now. He chose to go off and do, whatever you said he was doing, and you have the opportunity to help him and everyone else, here.”
“You want me to abandon him?”
“No, of course not. Just give him a break, like he did to you.”
He was way off. She was the one who chose not to go with him, but she saw where he was going with this.
“Not that it matters, but Liam saved my life. Several times.”
“He got you into those situations,” he interjected.
She laughed. “Did he get me shot by your team? Is that really what you’re saying?” she said, almost daring him to respond. When he said nothing, she went on. “No, now isn’t the time to sit by and do nothing. Liam and his grandma believe each person has to step up and try to save the world. Some people are boarding up the windows of their homes, intending to die in place. Others are running to the North Pole, or wherever they think they’ll find safety. But Liam has chosen to go into danger so he can help everyone. That’s part of why I need him.”
“But you don’t need him right now. We can go off, grab Grandma, and collect him later.”
There was some truth to that. She did voluntarily let him go with his mom. But she needed the time alone to—lay her old life to rest. It had nothing to do with him, other than she needed to exit the Liam roller coaster just long enough to tend to her own affairs. Thinking about him in this context made her grateful how easy he’d made it for her. He didn’t complain when she pretty much insisted she needed to do this by herself. It reinforced every feeling she had for him.
Though Hayes stood nearby, she felt the smile on her face as she recalled their moment behind the big tree after they’d escaped from St. Louis. She thought she’d have to kiss him first, but after she’d pulled him behind the tree—away from the eyes of the police and other refugees—he’d figured out her clever plan and leaned in to kiss her. It was short but so worth it.
When they were done, she whispered a thank you in his ear. He probably thought it was because he’d helped her get out of the city, but it was much larger than that. He’d given her hope to look ahead, finally, after being on the run from her life since that dark night in the Colorado woods. That feeling of escape washed over her once more, and she knew Hayes wouldn’t understand.
“No. You’ve got to trust me on that. There is no way I’d leave this camp without Liam. Case closed.” She folded her arms across her chest. It felt pouty, but her point was made.
Liam, please hurry.
2
“I—” Hayes began. He looked down the hall, past her.
“Wha—”
He shushed her. In the creepy hallway, there was no need to question him. She watched his face. His finger remained over his lips, as if he still saw the object behind her.
It took thirty seconds, then he sprang for the open door of the control room, trying to pull her in. She hesitated to go back in, after all they’d just discussed, but relented.
Hayes whispered. “There’s someone at the far end of the hall.”
&
nbsp; “A guard?”
“I sent the guards outside. I wanted to be alone with you.”
She looked at him with a frown.
“No, not like that. I wanted to be able to talk to you without being overheard. The NIS is still a hidden organization. I didn’t want to endanger those men’s lives by getting them involved.”
It seemed reasonable, though that made her more suspicious of the entire chain of events tonight. He was always thinking ahead.
And I’m always thinking behind.
The realization was important, but she tucked it away for another day. If the guards were gone…
“A student perhaps? Out for a moonlight stroll?” she said it to be funny, but it didn’t ring true. Even in the brief time she’d spent with the research students, they’d seemed frightened and pliable. The days of midnight pranks were long gone.
“No. I followed you through the tunnel and locked the gate.”
She didn’t know there even was a gate down there, but it made sense.
“I don’t suppose you told the guards to lock the doors, did you?”
Hayes was at the edge of the door, peeking out. When he came back in, he looked at her with a yes nod. “I needed to make sure you and I had this meeting. The guards were instructed to keep the doors locked, and they wouldn’t have done it any other way. There are zombies in this building, and the safety of the whole camp depends on them staying in here.”
She looked at him like he’d just stepped in dog dirt.
“What? You think I knew this would happen?”
“You locked yourself into a building with zombies. What did you think was going to happen?”
He looked past her.
“The monitors.”
As quietly as he could, he pulled the door shut. It had a stout security deadbolt, which he secured.
“We’ll be safe in here,” he assured her. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
At the security desk, the feeds showed different parts of the building. The only one turned off was the one in her dorm room. He pointed to the screen where the patients were under observation. The zombies that were previously walking around the bedded patients were no longer there. The front door was propped open.
They watched the screens. One of the walking zombies showed up on the stairs. Moving down to the basement. In the strange infrared vision, she could only say it was a woman in a dress.
After a time, a second zombie showed up on the stairs. Moving up to their floor. There was at least one more already on their level, at the end of the hall.
“I hate to ask something so obvious, but when you locked us in here, did you think to bring a gun?”
His eyes told her what she already knew. Despite his hand in the Zombie Apocalypse, he seemed to hate the idea of using guns.
“Do we have a radio, at least? Can we call in the guards?”
“I, uh...”
“You removed the radios, didn't you?” She was getting angry.
“Well, I couldn't have you calling for help before I got a chance to talk to you, alone.”
“Dang it. Now I have to spend my whole night in a tiny room with the one man...”
He waited for her to finish her thought. When she didn't, he tried it himself. “The one man who can save humanity?”
“I was going to say the one man who tried to have me killed, but then I realized there are a lot of men—and women—who wanted me dead, along with everyone else. Why is the NIS so evil?”
Her Christian background searched for a good versus evil angle to things, though it couldn't reconcile Hayes. A man who helped design the plague, and seemed to be the only one working to fix it.
“You'd be surprised, I think, if you met those people. The ones I know, at least. They're bureaucrats, politicians, soldiers. They get up and eat breakfast just like you. You couldn't pick them out of a crowd of average people if you tried. That's what makes them so dangerous.”
“Us. You were supposed to say 'that's what makes us so dangerous,' right?”
“You still think I'm working for them?”
“I don't know who you're working for. This whole—” she waved her arms wildly, trying to signify both the video monitors and the world outside “—scenario you've created tonight. It's insane. Why not just invite me in the light of day and explain what you were doing? All of this—” she gestured with her arms again “—was just stupid and unnecessary. Frankly, it's what I would expect from someone working for a super-secret government agency.”
“Sometimes I wish I could go back to the old ways. Not because it was evil or because I wanted to work on viruses, but because it was safe. There are probably medical teams working in one of the fortresses around the country, making the same discoveries I am. And they're doing it in the comfort of impenetrable walls. By comparison, I'm on the front lines of this disease, risking myself every minute I'm out here.”
“But you're making these great discoveries. Even if your methods are unorthodox, and I'm not saying I agree with them, but even I can't deny this is a huge discovery.”
That seemed to perk him up. “So you'll help me?”
“When we get out, I still want to try to find Liam. Then he and I will decide what to do next. We're a team,” she said with finality.
It's going to be a long night.
3
They spent another half hour studying the monitors, though they were only able to say definitively where two of the released zombies had gone. The woman in the lower level had gone missing.
“I hate to bring this up. We have to get a warning to those guards before they come back in the building. If they unlock the doors, the zombies may jump on them and get free.”
“They're trained to handle that. We just have to wait it out,” Hayes said matter-of-factly.
Deep down, she wanted to listen to him. Just sit back and wait for sunrise, and let the guys with guns handle the trouble. But there was a whole refugee camp behind that thin blue line of guards. If the zombies got past them, it put everyone in danger, including—perhaps—Liam.
“Dang it, Hayes, are you going to make me be the man, here?”
“What? What'd I say?”
“You're planning to let those guards get attacked, just because you don't want to risk yourself?”
He'd been that way back when they escaped from the Arch, but he seemed to have learned nothing since then.
“Never get involved, when you don't have to.”
“But we have to,” she barked. “We have to think of the camp. If just one of those zombies gets into the crowd, what do you think will happen?”
“They have muzzles on, Vicky, don't sweat it.”
“Don't call me that.” Her anger was reaching a high simmer. “Don't ever call me that.”
Hayes looked shocked at her response.
“Look, you...scaredy-cat...we cannot risk it.”
She looked around for the tenth time, searching in vain for anything she could use as a weapon. A small utility shelf yielded a tape measure, some duct tape, and a ten-inch long flat head screwdriver. When she picked it up, it was like she'd struck gold.
“This!”
“What are you going to do with that? Unhinge the doors?” he chuckled.
“I'm going to put those zombies down.”
“Whoa. You're nuts. Just sit in here and we're golden.”
If he felt any shame under her glare, he gave no indication.
“That's how you're gonna play it?” she asked. “Fine. I'll go out and fight them, and you can stay in here and watch TV. All I need to do is get to a window and yell down. It should be easy as cake since we can watch the monitors to avoid the bad guys.”
On paper, it was cake.
The cake is a lie.
She wondered where the thought came from.
Bennie.
A boy from her old high school used the saying all the time in the cafeteria when cake was served. She never cared enough to ask him, but his friends
always seemed to laugh at the joke. If she ever saw him again, she would tell him that he was right about that. So much of life was a lie, including the cake.
She hoped he'd argue, but he was soon by the door motioning toward the lock.
“When you go out, I'll lock this door again and watch you on the monitors.”
“And if I need help?”
“I'm sure the guards will hear you. Cake, right?” He laughed a little, which she interpreted as his satisfaction at having caught her in her own saying.
“Sure.” He wasn't going to be of any help.
A quick check of the screens placed the zombies in between the floors, on opposite ends of the hallway. The basement zombie was still missing, but it was last seen in the lowest level. Out of her way.
Without fanfare, she unbolted the door and walked into the hallway. As promised, Hayes locked it behind her. The security bolt was surprisingly loud in the nighttime hallway.
“Just a stroll to a room with a window,” she whispered to herself.
The screwdriver felt tiny in her hand. In moments she found an open doorway in a room with a window. It was set up like a classroom. Desks in neat rows.
She closed the door behind her.
The windows beckoned her.
Maybe this will be cake.
Inwardly she laughed. The whole affair would make a funny story if Bennie survived.
The window slid upward and the warm air of the night blew in her face. A tinge of the smells of thousands of people in the park nearby accompanied the wind, but it was minimal. In the distance, many small fires danced. Cooking whatever was left to eat.
Above, the stars were brilliant. Without the light of the city, it was easy to see the stars as if she were in the wilderness of her home state. She enjoyed the feeling and the memories for a few moments before searching the grounds below for evidence of the guards.
“Hello?” she called down as loud as she dared. “Is anyone there? I need help.”
The paved walkways of the campus led away from the building to other structures nearby, but there weren't any students cavorting about as she would have expected of a university campus of old. It was dead outside.
The university was near the park, but the campfires were hundreds of yards away. She considered screaming—they'd surely hear her.
Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 Page 13