by James Cook
Gideon died beneath me, but my body kept on. For an unknown time, I fed. Gideon struggled, then went limp. Others joined me. When the hunger abated, I summoned the last vestiges of my humanity and stood up. I turned back toward the man hiding above me with the big scope on his rifle. I raised my hand again, imploringly this time. He shifted and brought his rifle to bear.
The last thing I heard was a muffled crack.
And then darkness.
TWENTY-TWO
The sound of gunfire echoed long into the morning.
Just after dawn, two Chinooks arrived with forty troops from the 82nd Airborne and a crate of ammunition. When they touched down, Ethan met with the lieutenant in charge and briefed him on the situation. Ten minutes later, the lieutenant had his men form neat ranks on the inner and outer wall, and gave the order to open fire. While they worked, the governor and Sheriff Davis organized a work detail of over a hundred people to begin excavating the mass graves where they planned to dispose of the bodies. The forklifts would make moving them from one place to another easy, but the digging still had to be done by hand. Watching them work, Ethan wondered how big of a hole it would take to bury over a thousand corpses. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Cole, Hicks, and Holland gathered on the wall near the main gate where they had a good view of the extermination. They took no satisfaction from watching the ghouls die; it was just something that needed doing. Tedious and grotesque, but necessary. Normally they would have participated, but after forty-eight hours with nearly zero sleep and very little food, they were ready for a break.
Following a brief meeting with the governor—who made a show of expressing her sincere gratitude to the Army as loudly as she could to the throngs of people standing nearby—Ethan said his goodbyes and joined his troops on the wall. Zeb and his men made their rounds and then followed soon after.
“I appreciate all your help, gentlemen,” the old sheriff said, shaking each soldier’s hand in turn. “Don’t know if we could have pulled this off without you. I know we got off to a bad start, but I’m damn glad we ran into you fellas.”
“Likewise,” Ethan replied. “I’m just glad we stopped that crazy bastard before anyone else got killed.”
The smile faded from Zeb’s face. “Yeah. I just wish we’d stopped him sooner, you know?”
Ethan nodded. “We did the best we could Zeb. We saved this town, and there are a lot of people alive today who wouldn’t be if not for us. Don’t forget that.”
Zeb stared at his boots while Hedges and Michael said their goodbyes. When they were finished, he tipped his hat to Ethan and led his men back down the ladder. A few minutes later, they rode their horses through the gate and turned north, back toward Fort Unity. To the east, the sun rose higher in the sky and cast their shadows long across the pale brown grass.
“So now what?” Holland asked as he watched the lawmen ride away.
“Now we go retrieve our gear,” Ethan said. “Head over to the governor’s office and radio FOB Harkin for pickup. The helo should be able to put us down near where we left our packs. After that, we’ll see about catching up with the U-trac.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Holland turned and began climbing down the ladder. “I can’t tell you how excited I am about riding that goddamn thing again. Eating shitty food, barely sleeping, sucking down jet fumes, getting shot at. I’m getting a hard-on just thinking about it.”
Hicks chuckled quietly and shouldered his rifle. “Reckon I better go with him. Make sure he stays out of trouble.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Ethan replied.
The gunshots kept up a steady cadence as the troops from the 82nd went about their business. Cole and Ethan stood side by side and watched them while they waited for Holland and Hicks to return. At the main gate, a team of workers had already removed the section of wall damaged by the LAW rocket and were busy welding a new pedestrian entrance out of steel plates. True to the governor’s word, they would have the gate fixed in just a few hours.
Ethan’s expression grew troubled as his mind wandered back to the previous night’s events. He’d tried to put it out of his mind, but now that things had quieted down, the memories were breaking loose from their cages. Over and over again, he saw the last seconds of the Ragman’s life and the strange ghoul that killed him. Ethan didn’t doubt his sanity or his eyesight, but he was having a hard time coming to grips with what he’d witnessed, and what it might mean. Everything he knew about the walking dead had just been turned on its head, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Something wrong?” Cole asked, noticing his squad leader’s distraction.
Ethan opened his mouth, hesitated, closed it, and then tried again. “It’s just…I saw something weird last night. You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”
“What happened?”
“I was over there by that battlement when the horde came in. The guy leading them, the Ragman, he was right below me when the ghouls got him.”
“Okay. So why is that weird?”
“The one that killed him…it uh…I think it might have waved at me.”
Ethan turned to look at Cole, expecting some kind of joke or his friend’s usual boisterous laughter. Instead, the big man’s expression was somber. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Well, the Ragman was right below me, like I said, and the ghoul that got him was way ahead of the others. It moved faster than I’ve ever seen one of them go. The damn thing was almost running. When it got close, I shifted my aim to take it out, and I think it heard me. It looked right at me, Isaac. I swear on my mother’s grave, it looked right at me and it raised its hand like this.” Ethan waved a hand in the air, demonstrating. “Like it wanted me to see it. The Ragman looked where it was waving, and then bam, the ghoul was on him.”
Ethan drew his jacket tighter around him, jamming his hands in his pockets. It was a cold morning, but the chill he felt had nothing to do with the weather. “After it killed him, when the other ghouls showed up, it stood up. That was the weirdest thing, I’ve never seen one of them do that. You know how they get, right? They get a hold of food, and they’re like fucking rats—you can’t pry ‘em off with a crowbar. But not this one. It stood up, it looked right at me, and it waved again. I know you think I’m yanking your chain, Isaac, but I swear to God, that’s what happened. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
Cole’s expression hadn’t changed. “What did you do then?”
He shrugged. “I shot it. Thing is though, I think that’s what it wanted. I think it wanted me to shoot it.”
Cole was silent for a long time after that, his eyes distant. When he finally spoke, it was slow and hesitant. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Ethan, and I don’t think you would lie to me about something like that. But that’s pretty goddamn strange.”
Ethan shuffled his feet. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know, man.” Cole shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The two soldiers watched quietly for a while as the detachment from the 82nd wiped out the last of the horde. When their work was done, they piled into the Chinooks and took flight back toward FOB Harkin, but left their crate of ammo sitting in the market square. Ethan had a feeling it wasn’t an accident.
He and Cole climbed down from the wall and were silent as they walked through the main gate. Hicks and Holland joined them a short time later, and they shared a quick meal of MREs while waiting for the helicopter. No one spoke as they ate, all of them lost in their own thoughts. An hour later, a Blackhawk touched down in a field nearby, and after letting Ethan and his men retrieve their packs, the pilot turned the chopper due west on an intercept course with the U-trac and the rest of First Platoon.
As the ground sped by below, alternating between forest canopy, overgrown fields, and abandoned towns, Ethan thought about Broken Bridge. He thought about those poor murdered people, all dead because of one madman’s desire to kill. It was unfathomable t
o Ethan what could drive a person to do such horrible things. To burn and destroy for the sake of burning and destroying. And the worst part about it, the thing that frightened him the most, was it had just been one man. Just one. What if there had been more, working together? He shivered at the thought.
The Blackhawk passed over Charlotte on its way to the Tennessee border. Below it, a million walking corpses craned their necks to watch it pass, their undead eyes locked to it as it traced through the sky. It continued westward, growing smaller and smaller on the horizon.
Eventually, it disappeared.
For more information, news, and updates on James N. Cook and the Surviving the Dead series:
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Also by James N. Cook:
Surviving the Dead series:
No Easy Hope
This Shattered Land
Warrior Within
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Also by Joshua Guess:
Victim Zero, Book One of The Fall
And all his other books, too numerous to list here.
About the Authors:
James N. Cook (who prefers to be called Jim, even though his wife insists on calling him James) is a martial arts enthusiast, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a former cubicle dweller, and the author of the “Surviving the Dead” series. He hikes, he goes camping, he travels a lot, and he has trouble staying in one spot for very long. Even though he is a grown man, he enjoys video games, graphic novels, and gratuitous violence. He lives in North Carolina (for now) with his wife, son, two vicious attack dogs, and a cat that is scarcely aware of his existence.
Joshua Guess (who prefers to be called Josh but uses Joshua because his mother freaking demands he use it professionally) is a jack of many trades. He has training in martial arts, survival, fire/rescue, emergency medicine, and a host of other areas. Between intense bouts of writing, he enjoys movie nights with his wife, good meals at local diners, and trying to catch a nap without one of his cats using him as a pillow. Residing in Frankfort, Kentucky, he spends most days cooped up in his office with a giant dog, dim lighting, and too many ideas to keep in his head.
If you enjoyed The Passenger, you may also like the exciting zombie apocalypse thriller Victim Zero, by Joshua Guess. Read on for a preview!
Chapter One
Kelvin McDonald, who was only called by his rightful first name when some woman or another in his family was angry, sat in his office long after his staff went home for the day. It had been seven years since that last trip before being awarded his doctorates; seven years of constant research into the strange organism he'd drunkenly dubbed Chimera on a night out with his team members.
The world hadn't really been a different place then, but looking back on how much of his life changed from that day, it seemed like someone else had lived it. He had entered college at sixteen, sought after by every university with a science program to speak of. Full scholarships offered and finally accepted, Kell found a home at Stanford. He remembered those first few days on campus; a tall and gangly black kid, too young to need a shave more than every third day, southern accent not thick enough to get him laughed at but always present and commented on by the west-coast cast of characters around him.
His first few days were hard, but in the biology department he fit in for the first time. The memory of discussing microbiological theory and favorite research papers with peers sharing his excitement was a treasured one. Like an heirloom, Kell took that one out often. It was polished and beautiful and sharply detailed. His first few days at Stanford were a major turning point in his life.
At twenty-six he went on that trip, ten years of hard work that would have been twelve or thirteen if not for his brilliant mind and perfect recall. Before his next birthday he was awarded those sheepskins; one specialized in microbiology, the other in genetics. Kell had always suspected the initial months he'd dedicated to studying Chimera had played a part in the decision to grant his doctorates. It wasn't a secret the faculty wanted him on staff as a researcher. Indeed, it worked out that way.
A year later Stanford was made an offer it couldn't refuse. Kell didn't know how much money exchanged hands, but the biotech company that bought out every scrap of Stanford's research into Chimera, Sinclair, was international and enormous. A few years before they'd been hit with a lawsuit decision that required a hundred-million dollar payout, and the company hadn't hesitated.
The only catch to the deal was that Kell came with it. The man who lived and breathed Chimera would have to leave his home of more than a decade.
Kell agreed with the proviso that if he were so vital to the company that they wouldn't buy the research without him attached, he got to choose where he did his work.
The office he sat in, with only the recess lights burning, was the place he'd settled after leaving the university. An hour and a half north of his home, the Cincinnati division of Sinclair Global was his. Entirely his—no other work went on in the subdued building.
The phone on his desk rang, and Kell answered.
“Kelvin McDonald,” he said.
“Doctor McDonald,” the voice on the other end replied. “This is Jim Mitchell. You were told to wait for my call?”
Of course I was, you idiot. Why else would I be here an hour late?
“Yes, sir,” Kell said.
“Good, Good,” Mitchell said. “Let me tell you what this is all about, then. You've been working on Chimera variants that repair nerve damage, correct?”
Kell inhaled sharply. “Yes, that's right, but--”
Mitchell cut him off. “And how would you categorize the success of those variants, Dr. McDonald?”
“I'd call them good, so far,” Kell said. “But in need of a lot of work.” He made an effort to keep his voice even, calm. Mitchell was a vice-president.
“Is that so?” Mitchell asked. “I think you're being modest, Doctor. You've been testing the variants on primates for months now, haven't you? With a total success rate?”
Kell fought the urge to grind his teeth. “Yes, but there are concerns. Chimera is extremely difficult to control. It evolves within a subject. In lower order test subjects, there were always mutations that created unexpected results.”
“But not undesired results?”
Kell snorted. “You're pushing for something, Mr. Mitchell. I won't sit here and explain the complexities of Chimera. You want to tell or ask me something, and you want to hear that I'm confident about where our research stands. Why?”
Mitchell paused for a moment. “I think you are confident, Doctor. I also think you're being overly cautious. Aside from one incident last year, my understanding is the Chimera organism has given overwhelmingly positive results. I want to know your opinion on moving to human trials.”
Kell didn't hesitate. “It's an incredibly bad idea. Not only will we not be eligible for clearance on that for several years, but Chimera seems to be more active in more complex life forms. As you pointed out, last year we lost sixty-seven mice in less than an hour. That was due to a mutation, and all those animals died from a single test subject being introduced to the population. I'm sure you read the report, sir, but if I feel my position is more grounded in reality it's only because I was cleaning out the shredded corpses of more than four dozen mice. I saw that with my own eyes, touched it with my hands.”
Mitchell cleared his throat. “So you're telling me you are absolutely opposed to human trials?”
Kell felt relief wash over him. “Yes, sir. I am. Even if we could get clearance, this organism is simply too dangerous and our understanding too limited. I've been working with it for seven years and even I have barely scratched the surface. As quickly as Chimera evolved in that single mouse, it did so four times as fast in our primates. In human
s the generational changes would be at least as quick and not necessarily for the better.”
There was a long silence. Kell began to think Mitchell had ended the call, but caught the faint sound of the other man breathing.
“That's very unfortunate, Doctor McDonald. Because Sinclair Global received a special dispensation for human trials three months ago, and half a billion dollars in DARPA backing to escalate our research.”
Kell swore. Loudly.
Mitchell chuckled nervously. “Understandable reaction, but you're going to like this next part even less. Tomorrow you'll be receiving a visit from some workers who will be installing a basic isolation unit in an unused section of your lab. You see, Dr. McDonald, we've had our Boston lab working with the primate variants for six months, and the first human subject began trials three weeks ago. There have been...complications. And we need your expertise.”
Kell's free hand gripped the edge of his desk so hard he felt the heavy wood creak. “How long until this patient arrives, if I may ask?” Kell said with icy formality.
“Oh, he'll be there in about six hours, actually. We're sending him in a temporary unit housed within a shipping container. Transitional staff will stay with him until you arrive at work tomorrow morning. Then he's all yours.”
Kell pinched the bridge of his nose and for the first time in his life wished he'd gone into mathematics or physics or wizardry. Something harmless.
“Yes, sir,” Kell said. “I'll be here.”
*****
Karen was already in the shower and baby Jennifer in her crib, when Kell finally made it home. Kell thought about slipping behind the curtain to join his wife but reconsidered when he remembered her habit of keeping a loaded .38 on the towel rack next to the tub. One break-in was enough to teach her caution.