Plagued: The Rock Island Zombie Counteractant Experiment (Plagued States of America)

by Better Hero Army

  “The Cobb. Send it over there, will you, Mac? I see an old friend.”

  “Sure thing, Danni.”

  She boldly strode toward Mason, her lips curling upward in a sassy smirk.

  “I thought I recognized you,” she said as she stopped in front of his table. “Jones, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What are you having?”

  “Nothing yet,” Mason replied.

  She looked over her shoulder toward the bar, throwing a hand up to catch the bartender’s attention. “Get me a beer for my friend,” she called out. The bartender nodded and she turned her attention back to Mason, smiling. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all,” Mason said, sliding out of the booth to stand. His courtesy made her smile.

  She was a tall woman, his own height in her heels. She slid into the bench seat opposite him and put her drink down out of the way, tossing her lab coat onto the seat beside her. Mason sat down again, settling one arm on the table, turning his shoulder toward the hunters who were now all watching him with veiled interest.

  “Ignore them,” she said. “Tell me, Mason Jones, are you in or out?”

  “I don’t know what I’d be in if I answered that question.”

  “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully, taking a deep breath and sighing before saying, “So are you really stupid pretending to be smart, or really smart pretending to be stupid?”

  “How about a little ignorant pretending to be both.”

  “All right, I think I can work with that.” She smiled again, tapping her glass with a finger as she considered his stoicism. “I was told you are particularly observant, that you don’t miss anything. Some kind of photographic memory?”

  “Eidetic memory,” Mason told her. “I was diagnosed with it in high school. Why does everyone keep asking me about it?”

  “It’s useful for this…let’s say, position. You are hyper-observant, which sets you apart. It’s one of the things that got you into Benning.”

  “Yeah, well, after five years Army, I think being a truck driver like my guidance counselor suggested might have been a smarter move.”

  She held an accommodating smile, the kind that showed her ire. “You’re good at insubordination, Jones. You pissed off Jefferson, and you’re pissing me off, too. He told me your fate was in my hands, so, unless you like this hell-hole, how about you try making some productive conversation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jones said evenly.

  She didn’t seem satisfied with his response. She continued to glare at him, picking up her drink again to take a sip. “So tell me what you know.”

  “I was hoping you could clue me in on what I should know. I got taken out of the hospital, put on a plane, driven to a restaurant in the Districts in Denver—and I don’t even have a District Pass—met with a Senator who wants to save America by stopping zombies—as if that’s possible—given an envelope with thirty pages of intelligence on this facility that I was told to commit to memory, given your name to contact, and then they put me into two weeks of training for zombie hand-to-hand and close quarters combat before shipping me here to scrub cells on the graveyard shift. That’s the sum total of my last two weeks.”

  “Nobody told you what we’re doing here?”

  “All I know is there’s a research lab below the prison.”

  “You’ve seen the rest of the island, I presume. I mean, you have eyes, don’t you?”

  Mason nodded, but instead of answering, he sat up straight, not taking his eyes off hers as the bartender put a beer down in front of him. She smiled, saying, “Thanks, Mac. Where’s the salad?”

  “It’s coming, it’s coming,” the bartender said over his shoulder as he retreated.

  “Do you come here often?” Mason asked. She laughed heartily. For as much as he thought he should hate her, he was having trouble putting the description others had painted of her to the woman sitting across from him.

  “All right, I’ll let that one pass,” she said with a demure smile. “Unless you’re trying to come on to me.”

  “No, I just figure you know the bartender,” Mason shrugged.

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you need a little help forgetting what you’ve seen, you know?” She held up her glass to him. He held up his beer and they touched the two in a toast before taking a drink.

  Mason had no trouble agreeing with her, thinking of his own past and what he wished he could forget, but drinking never helped. It only emboldened the memories. He shook off such thoughts and took a deep breath. “So what is it I’m getting into?”

  She gauged him a second, not pressing him on what he’d said. “I want to test your eyes. Can you tell me what kind of tattoo those two men playing pool have without looking?”

  “The one with black hair and a beard doesn’t have any tattoos,” Mason said. “The other one, the guy thin as rails, has sleeves of tats covering both arms. I only really made out a skull on his left arm and a lot of fire on the right. You, on the other hand, have a dove on your right ankle.”

  “You noticed?” she asked with a wry smile, raising her eyebrows. “What else about me did you notice?”

  “Does this count as productive? I mean, this place is a real hell-hole, like you said.”

  “Humor me,” she went on, still smiling.

  Mason considered a moment before opening his mouth. Was she leading him just to disarm him, to worm her way through his defenses? He still couldn’t trust her. For as long as they had been sitting together, she had yet to say anything substantive.

  “You don’t have a badge or wallet anywhere on you, not even the pockets of your lab coat.”

  “You can see in my coat?” she asked in surprise, looking at herself.

  “When you put it down. The pockets, I can see them from here,” Mason said while pointing.

  “Oh, well, that’s good. For a second I thought maybe you could see down my shirt too,” she said and laughed.

  Mason smiled and picked up his beer to have another sip. “Your phone has a pink frame,” he told her. “The one in the pocket of your skirt.”

  “How the hell did you see that?” she asked, looking down at her lap.

  “Last night. You were carrying it in your hand.”

  “Damn, you are observant.”

  Mason shrugged and took another sip of his beer. She unzipped her pocket and withdrew her pink phone. “You don’t see many of these on the island,” she said while swiping the screen to login. “Signals are jammed over here, at least the public band. This one, though,” she said, shaking it for emphasis. “This one is on a private frequency. Do you know why I’m allowed to have this?”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Because I’m in charge,” she said. “Can you work with that?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Great, then why don’t you tell me why you’re here tonight?”

  “Your salad,” Mason said, leaning back in his seat. She shot him a questioning glare for a split second. The bartender stepped up next to the table and put a salad down in front of her. She began to laugh again, an intoxicatingly real, hearty laugh that worried Mason. This was all a game to her.

  “Get me another, would you, Mac?” she asked the retreating bartender, pointing at her glass as she raised it to take another sip. “So why are you here?” she asked Mason.

  “I was assigned.”

  “No, here, tonight. You called me. This number. That means you want in. If you didn’t want to play ball, you would have just served your six months and gone home like the others.”

  “Others?”

  “Oh, do you think you’re the only person we’ve assigned here?”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” she asked. She took a bite of salad and looked as if she were lost in thought a moment as she chewed. “Answers. All right. Well, before last night’s brilliant zombie killing of yours, we wanted your help in closing this place down once
and for all.”

  “Close it down?”

  “In the military, you’d say it’s no longer of strategic importance.”

  “But close it?”

  “Look, don’t you think America has had enough of the zombie plague?” she asked.

  Mason had heard nearly those exact words from the Senator’s mouth. It made him feel like he was listening to talking points. The difference between hearing it from her as opposed to Senator Jefferson was that he was beginning to like the sound of her voice.

  “What can you do about it?”

  “Well, cure it, of course.”

  “How? It would take twenty years to round them all up.”

  “This isn’t the time to get into a discussion about logistics, Lieutenant,” she said, taking another bite of her salad. She turned her head to chew, watching him from the corner of her eyes. “You can help us put a stop to the zombie infection once and for all. Entire states can be restored. Think of all the jobs and the livelihoods that would affect. The biggest land rush since Oklahoma. Over three states restored, with new cities built by new investors creating new jobs and stimulating our economy to bring us back on top where we belong. Your own home state is a split-state, right? Ohio?”

  Mason nodded, sipping his beer.

  She took another bite of her salad to let her words sink in. As much as Mason would have liked to believe it didn’t mean anything to him, he was, after only two days, sick as hell of this place and willing to listen.

  “We can’t restore the union the way things are. This place, this continuation of the slave trade—of slaves, lieutenant. They’re using innocent people as slaves—all because they cling to a way of life that was thrust upon them by accident. I can fix it. I can put an end to the consumption pathogen, but not if these drunk, tattooed, inbred, retards playing pool on a remote island in the worst hellhole on planet Earth continue to exist. As long as they keep bringing in more slaves, businesses won’t put a stop to their acquisitions. Did you know it’s cheaper to manufacture trucks in America now than it is in Mexico? The Chinese care more about the CAC, FTSE, and DAX than they do the NASDAQ or NYSE. As a nation, we’re becoming a second-world economy.

  “This virus has ruined America, and I’m sick of it.”

  Kennedy stabbed her salad and took another bite, chewing slowly and watching Mason closely.

  “It’s only my second day and I’m pretty damned sick of it too,” Mason said and took another sip of beer.

  “Well, then, what’s it going to be?” she asked.

  “What do you need me to do?” Mason asked. She smirked, stabbing her salad again to take another bite.

  Fifteen

  Memories only haunted Mason when he closed his eyes. They used to invade his waking thoughts too, whenever he slowed down enough that his mind had time to travel wherever it wanted. And it always went to the same place: Egypt.

  The rattling of the RPG going off along the wall hardly shook him. In his dream, it flew across the street as haphazardly as a butterfly, bouncing and weaving on unseen eddies and currents, leaving behind a contrail of white smoke. No hiss or high-pitch whistle. Even the explosion pounded with an eerie quiet. The only sound was the familiar whit-dit-dit of an M-14 rifle as it burst clusters of rounds down over the crowd.

  Put down your weapon, soldier, Mason shouted over the gunfire. That’s an order! The young soldier, hardly more than a boy, lifted his eye from his M-14 and turned his head to see Mason aiming at him. How many times had Mason already told him to cease fire? There was a fierceness in the young man’s eyes, Mason would later report to his superior officer, but that didn’t describe the wild fury that had taken utter control of Corporal Smith. The Egyptian mob beneath the wall scattered, receding like startled rats. Smith ignored Mason once again, pulling the trigger to fire another burst of rounds at the crowd. Mason held one hand on another soldier’s wounded arm in an effort to staunch the gushing blood, leaning his weight on the wound. Soldier, Mason shouted again. Smith turned to glare at Mason again as he switched magazines. Don’t do it, Mason heard himself pleading. Screw you, Smith snarled as he turned the M-14 on Mason, shooting a stream of bullets.

  Buzz, buzz, buzz. He heard the bullets whip by his head. Buzz, buzz, buzz.

  “Wake up, asshole!” Lieutenant Thompson groaned.

  Mason jerked, suddenly wide awake. He slapped the alarm clock. He could hear himself breathing hard even though he knew his heart hardly took a beat.

  “Sorry,” Mason said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Why’d I get stuck with someone on graves?” his roommate moaned and covered his head with his pillow.

  Mason stared at the dark floor beneath his feet and tried to wrench the memory from his thoughts, but it was like cement. He could still see the accident report clearly.

  Smith, William A., Corporal, 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Regiment, assigned to U.S. Embassy Defensive Controls duty after completion of Ranger training. Became a father two months after deployment. Killed three and wounded sixteen Egyptian civilians during a protest march on the U.S. Embassy after a rocket propelled grenade was fired from the crowd that wounded two soldiers. When ordered to cease fire, he refused, and eventually turned his weapon on himself.

  That was the official report, the one he had signed. Sometimes he regretted that as much as killing the poor kid.

  Mason used the hall phone to punch in the extension of the duty officer and waited for an answer. He stood in the darkness of the bay of rooms, alone under the dim light of the exit sign posted above the door.

  “What do you need me to do?” he had asked Kennedy. She hadn’t given him an answer, at least not a good one. She smiled and finished her drink before telling him she would be in touch, that she had to talk it over with the Senator, and that he should just keep doing what he was doing.

  “What am I doing?” Mason asked.

  “Blending in,” she had told him.

  “Phillips,” the night duty officer said as he picked up the other line.

  “Sir, this is Lieutenant Jones. The warden—”

  “Oh, yeah, he called me a few hours ago,” Sergeant Phillips interrupted. He sounded agitated, like he had been dreading this phone call since he heard the news. “Look, we still need you to come in, if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason replied. “I’m not tired anyway. I’ll put in my shift.”

  “Oh, good. Good. That’s the Ranger spirit. I’ll see you as soon as you get here.”

  Mason dressed and went to the prison complex in a fog of thought. He hardly noticed the blacklight glow to the cement walls of the man-trap gate. Mason waved at the soldier peering down at him from atop the gate tower as he made his way to the side door of the complex. Unlike during the day shift, it was so quiet at night it felt like death hovered over the island.

  There was no one in the munitions room when Mason arrived. He swiped his card and punched a code to open one of the inventory control doors that showed a pistol and belt holster through the glass. The door unlocked and Mason withdrew the weapon, checked it for rounds in the chamber, and then tested the trigger. It was in working order. Ammunition and clips were openly available. Mason took a loaded clip and slid it into the butt of the gun. Fifteen rounds should be enough for any contingency, but after his first night, he wished they issued high-capacity magazines.

  “Ah, Jones,” Sergeant Phillips said when Mason knocked on his open door. Phillips sat rubbing his temples when Mason first saw him, staring at his computer screen. He stood and saluted as Mason entered the room.

  Mason returned the salute.

  “Have a seat,” he offered. “How are you getting along?”

  “Fine, sir,” Mason said as he settled into the square, wooden framed chair.

  “I’m sorry to have to call you in like this, but we’re running below MPO tonight without you and Matty.”

  Minimal Personnel Occupancy, or MPO, for Rock Island Prison Defense Facility consisted of two roof
guards, two tower guards, and six patrol guards who doubled at station post details. Technically, that made Mason part of the prison defense guard even though his primary job was janitorial services.

  “Can’t afford any point reductions right now, given the circumstances,” Phillips said and looked up behind Mason.

  Mason turned at hearing someone entering.

  “Ah, Chavez, you know Lieutenant Jones, I trust?”

  Sergeant Chavez leaned against the door frame with a cup of coffee in one hand and his hat in the other. He nodded toward Mason.

  “Evening, sir,” Chavez said with a bleary smile.

  Mason nodded and smiled back. “How did you get roped into this?” Mason asked.

  “I was volunteered,” Chavez replied. “You ready?” he asked, nodding his head as if to say let’s go.

  They made their way down to the second floor where it looked like a slaughterhouse again in the operating room. Brown blood stains smeared the floor everywhere, bits of smashed flesh ringed the ground beneath the head of the operating table, and lines of dried blood meandered like streams toward the drains. The biters in the cells moaned hollowly, as though they were confused instead of desperate. It was quieter than down in the main cell block, their chorus didn’t excite one another as it would normally.

  “I vote we leave the ones in the cells alone and just—” Chavez said, waving a hand toward the operating table with a look of disgust. He poured his coffee onto the floor. “I don’t even know what to say about that.”

  Sixteen

  Mason sat on the folding chair in the janitor closet pulling on the waders. He and Chavez had hosed down and cleaned the operating table and floors around it, but left the biters in their cages as Chavez had suggested. Mason wasn’t too concerned with doing a good job in light of the circumstances. And besides that, he had been told to blend in. Chavez sat down next to him, yawning widely.

  “I hope they get a replacement for Matty in a hurry,” Chavez said. “I don’t want to get stuck on this duty again…no offense.”