More zombies came and Sadie's rage was large in her. “What did Eve do to deserve this?” she asked a three-piece suit wearing zombie before knocking him out of his one remaining shoe and sending his brains littering into the forest.
“Nothing!” she gasped and then turned one last time and jumped in her sneakers. The SUV had turned! She could see its far away headlights take a left. On impulse, Sadie began jogging after it—and then the truck took another left. It was coming back in her direction on a parallel course to the highway and Sadie saw exactly where it was heading.
Just on the edge of twilight she could see a house with a barn. It had to be where she was going. Everyone liked Neil's barn concept, including Cassie. With hope lending her strength, Sadie took off running for it, while behind her trailed a legion of undead.
They would have to wait.
Cassie beat her to the house by a full minute and was nowhere in sight as Sadie came up to the SUV, which had settled in a rearward list on two flat tires; Ram's aim had been spot on.
Without hesitation she went to the driver's side and not only was it locked, it seemed to come apart in her hand. The glass, a clear sheet one second, exploded into a thousand pieces the next, as a blast split the air behind her.
Sadie threw herself to the right as more gunshots sounded and bullets thumped into the Suburban. Blindly she returned fire, but her aim was to the stars since she couldn't chance hitting Eve. Cassie wasn't burdened by the welfare of anything and she shot her gun hot and all Sadie could do was run to the side of the house and hide.
There she had two forms of death to choose from: death under the rending jaws of zombies, or death from a bullet. An easy choice. When the first stiff came up she plugged it from a range of four feet; two more went down in the same manner and then she stuck her head around the corner of the house and saw that Suburban's doors were flung wide.
Now with a bit of breathing room from the zombies, Sadie sprinted to the Suburban and glanced in—no baby. She was about to head to the barn when she heard Eve's little lamb cry coming from the house and turning in mid-step she followed the sound, holding her gun out ahead of her like every television cop ever.
As quiet as a shadow, Sadie slipped across the hardwood floors, ignoring the country decor, the Hummel figurines, the fancy bone china in the dining room credenza. All of her senses were tuned to that little cry, while her body was on a hair trigger, ready to shoot the first thing that moved, only the house was still and unearthly quiet save for Eve.
The baby was crying somewhere below her and when Sadie found the stairs she had to pause despite her need to save Eve. The dark below was impenetrable and it sent a nasty trembling coursing through her muscles. “Cassie,” she whispered. “I won't hurt you if you give up the baby. Cassie! Don't be stupid.”
The words felt foreign to her tongue because regardless of her fear, or maybe because of it, she was in a killing mood—her, just a girl from Passaic was now behind a gun that she was more than willing to use. Only there wasn't another person in the basement, except for Eve. Down the stairs she went, slinking low, hoping to make herself less of a target, however no shots rang out and she found little Eve in her car seat a few feet from the bottom of the stairs.
“Shhh,” she said gently, while staring all around with wide eyes. There was a dim, dim light filtering in from the tiny rectangular windows set high up in the basement walls, this wasn't enough to see Cassie. She could be anywhere...or nowhere.
“Sadie, you dumb bitch,” Cassie said in a whisper from up the stairs. Sadie spun, confused. Why was she up there when the baby was down here? The answer was suddenly obvious and the shaking that she had tried to ignore grew stronger so that she had to hold the gun with two hands to keep it from falling.
“Here they come,” Cassie said. “Can you hear all them stiffs? All this shooting has got them coming from miles.”
“Cassie, please...” Sadie whispered her voice shaking along with her body. “Let us go. We never hurt you.”
“You gonna shoot it?” Cassie asked.
“It? What it?”
“The baby. Man you dumb. When the stiffs come for you, are you gonna kill it? Or let it turn into a little baby zombie?”
“I'm going to kill you, is what I'm going to do,” Sadie hissed in impotent fury. She didn’t dare try to go up the stairs just then, she’d be an easy target. “I swear it.”
“Yeah right...oh, here they come. I left the front door open and now your guests are arriving for dinner. See ya, bitch.”
Above Sadie, the floorboards began to creak and groan under the weight of many, many zombies. They weren't slow either, they were coming right for the stairs, drawn by the sound of...Eve. It was only just registering on Sadie that the baby was still crying.
“No...shhh. Eve please be quiet.”
Eve’s little eyes were wide in the dark and her tiny fingers were splayed and the zombies were coming to eat her. In her mind Sadie went down the “how to stop a baby from crying” check list that Sarah had told Julia in the car only the day before. Unfortunately, Sadie didn't have time to try any of those remedies.
She checked her gun...four bullets left, the sight of them, so few, left her staggered. She wouldn't be able to fight her way out and with the baby bleating as she was there wouldn't be a chance at hiding. There would only be death. Could she shoot the baby? If she did she would have to shoot herself next; there was no way she could live after doing such a thing.
But what was her choice?
Kneeling down, Sadie turned the gun on Eve. It wouldn't stay still in her grip. It shook and shimmied, and her hand went weak and numb so that it didn't feel like her own. “Oh God, please help me,” she whispered. But God did not give her the strength to kill the baby.
And then, as the beasts came into the kitchen above, she remembered a movie where a woman accidentally smothered her baby to death when she was just trying to keep her quiet. There had been soldiers near who would've killed them if they had heard.
“No, I won't,” Sadie whispered, but the memory of the movie wouldn't leave and in desperation, as the zombies came closer, her hand crept out to Eve's tiny face. Sadie started to cry. “Maybe a little,” she said, thinking she would just hold her hand there for a little while and it would be alright…somehow.
But then Eve grabbed Sadie's finger in her tiny hand and her grip was beautiful and miraculous, and Sadie knew she couldn't hurt the baby. Not ever. She turned the gun up the stairs not knowing what else to do, and then as she waited in misery at what was to come, Eve saved herself.
The baby's grip was insistent on Sadie's finger and she had just enough strength in her tiny muscles to pull the finger right into her mouth where she immediately went to sucking on it as if it was a pacifier. Now the only sound was the zombies shuffling about above. Sadie lifted the baby in her arms, making sure her finger stayed securely plugged between Eve's lips, and hurried to explore the rest of the basement desperately hoping to find another way out.
The dark and a few stairs would not keep the zombies away all night.
They had heard something and wouldn't give up the hunt for hours and Sadie was sure Eve wouldn't be mollified by the finger for too long. There was a central hallway of some twenty-five feet and from it sprouted rooms; she went to each, in a vain hope—there was only one way out—all the room were just that: little squares with tiny box-like windows set high up. No knowing what else to do, she went back to the stairs and saw scabby legs already heading down.
Holding back a scream she ducked into what was a storage room and in the dark kicked something. This brought the zombies quicker and they thumped down the stairs in their eagerness, making a moan that had Sadie shaking and near to throwing up. In her growing panic she stepped back and her foot came down on something small which triggered an idea. She dropped to a knee and felt around. In the blackness her hand found a Matchbox car; she knew it by feel alone, and she sent it skittering down the end of the hall where it ra
ttled up against the walls. And when she heard a rush of feet go by, she made a break for it.
There were more zombies in the first room where the stairs came down, but these she ignored—it was dark and confused and they were slow to recognize what she was. Up the stairs she ran, pausing only to use one of her four remaining bullets; there was a stiff halfway up and there was no getting around it.
With the gunshot all pretence of sneaking went out the window. Eve quit her finger and didn't just cry, she wailed in earnest, but there was nothing to be done. Sadie charged up into the kitchen coming face to...the thing barely had a face and lost what it did have when Sadie used bullet number two. When it fell back she dashed through the kitchen and into the hall where she was able to dodge around the first creature in her way, but there was a second and Sadie was forced to use her third bullet.
If there had been only a single zombie at the front door she would've escaped—she killed one and in a snap a second was right there. She beaned it across the forehead with the now useless pistol, and ran for the stairs to the second floor as behind zombies fell over themselves to get up at her.
And then more were on the stairs above her. She was trapped, but not alone. She had Eve who was wailing in fright...and Neil. Amazingly he came in right after the last zombie and in his hands was Ram's SAW. Like the world's smallest action hero he let the thing rip, nearly hitting Sadie in the process. The weapon seemed to rise on its own as he shot and the rounds whipped past her, one parting her spiked hair. She dropped on her butt, clutching Eve to her as Neil corrected his aim and tore the zombies to shreds.
“Behind you,” she pointed. There were so many that one gun wouldn't do it. He shot through the doorway clearing it momentarily and then Sadie pulled him out into the night. She nearly stumbled at the sight of them all. “We got to run for it,” she said despite that she saw that it would be useless.
“No,” he said, breathlessly and staggering in her grip. It was clear that he had done just about as much running as he was capable of, besides zombies were flocking in from everywhere. Even alone and unwinded, Sadie would have had a tough time of it.
“The barn!” he cried, and then they ran, and with their burdens neither was all that fast. Still they made it before the zombies and found that the barn wouldn't do. There was a hayloft, however it had stairs just as neat as you please and even if they had an axe to destroy them they didn't have time to use it. “Go,” he said looking sick at the sight of the stairs. “I'll draw them to me. You and Eve can escape.”
The short run to the barn with Eve had proved that wasn't going to be an option; she was just too unwieldy and besides her cries would bring the zombies to them like moths to a light. “No, we’ll go up. Maybe there something in the loft that'll help.” There wasn't. There was pitchfork, a rake and piles of hay. Sadie placed the baby in the hay and armed herself with the pitchfork.
“Short bursts,” she said as the first zombies came up. There were so many that the stairs creaked under their weight. Neil fired—pop, pop, pop. Making sure to conserve his ammo, but it was futile. Sadie saw there were enough zombies to tear down the entire...
One thought led to another and she suddenly yelled, “Shoot the stairs! The top one, shoot it right in the middle!” Neil's eyes went wide at the idea and as Sadie pushed the beasts back with her pitchfork, he used the SAW like a saw and tore the tread in two. Immediately the zombies on it fell backward creating havoc among them and while they tore at each other to get up, he destroyed the next stair and the next. He ran out of bullets trying the fourth stair, but it didn't matter. It came apart under the weight of the zombies and they plunged downward.
Now there was a gap of almost four feet and the zombies were stymied by it and fell through one after another. This went on for quite a while. The zombies would come up, see their dinner, race faster and then plunge through the opening to the cement below.
Sadie and Neil watched for a bit and then when it got disgusting, they retreated to the straw and made a burrow of it to keep warm. Curled up in the straw with Eve between them sucking on her finger, Sadie asked, “Is Julia really dead?”
“Yeah,” Neil breathed. “It was terrible...but what was worse was you running off like that. You had me scared to death.”
Sadie kissed Eve's round cheek and said, “It was worth it. But what was your excuse?”
He fumbled for words before trying, “I wanted to be a hero?”
“Some hero! You should have seen yourself jitterbugging all over the place working that machine gun. I swear you looked like you were just trying to hold on. So...how did you find me? You have no idea how scared I was.”
“Ram saw where you went into the woods, and then I could hear you firing. You shot a few times and I oriented on that and then by the house I saw the flashes and heard you and Sadie going at it like a couple of gun old west gunfighters. And you weren't the only one scared. Sometimes I was running right next to the zombies, it was horrible.”
“But you saved me,” Sadie said and then grinned. “You're my hero, Neil.” She kissed him on the nose, because it was the only part of his face that wasn't cherry-red.
Chapter 46
Eric
CDC Atlanta
Eric walked around the oval perimeter of the CDC with sweat on his upper lip and a digital camera in his hand. He was told to use it brazenly, that if he tried to sneak pictures of the defenses he would be caught for certain.
“I can't believe I'm doing this,” he whispered to himself, running a hand over his face after every picture, feeling the weight of his actions like stones piling in his gut. “This is fucking treason.”
Or it would be if there was still a working government. He hadn't wanted to go along with the coup attempt. Stubbornly, he had tried to resist, however Admiral Stevenson had laid out rather clearly his reasoning and it had made sense at the time:
“The Secretary is criminal in her dereliction of duty,” Admiral Stevenson had said as if the idea saddened him. “You have no idea how dangerous she is in her ineptness. All across the country we've lost thousands of soldiers in the last week alone, and God only knows how many millions of civilians. And if she continues on doing nothing, hiding out in the CDC, there won't be anything left of this country.”
“But attacking the CDC won't help you. This is where we can find a cure, or a vaccine,” Eric had stammered out a defense. “If what you're saying is true about the rest of the world being overrun then we definitely can't put the CDC at risk. It's now more important than ever.”
A grave smile crossed the admiral's lips. “Not if you’re just spinning your wheels and wasting precious supplies uselessly. That’s exactly what’s been happening with the Secretary in charge. The truth is this is about uniting our country once again under a single leader; it’s not about the CDC or finding a cure. You said yourself that it might not ever happen.”
“No we can do it. It'll just take...”
“Seven years?” Stevenson asked, using Eric's words against him. “I wasn't joking about only having seven months. We need leadership now or the coming winter will ravage us and maybe takes us to the brink of extinction. You need to weigh these facts Dr Reidy and look to the greater good. Yes people will die in the short run and I wish that weren't so, but in the long run it'll be for the best.”
“And what will you do with the CDC?” Eric asked. “You won't just give up on a vaccine will you?”
“Yes,” the admiral admitted. The answer was like a slap and Eric actually reeled back. “Yes. For now. I’ll keep some essentials on staff, but I’ve got to look at the bigger picture. The CDC has fifteen hundred men guarding triple their own number, while at the same time there are refugee camps of five-thousand citizens being guarded by a single company of soldiers. We have literally become a country of vagabonds and yet the great majority of our recourses go to a group of scientists who may or may not produce something in seven years! Paring back the manpower at the CDC should have been done weeks ag
o and it's just another example of failed leadership.”
The admiral wasn't wrong about the Secretary, or her leadership skills, nor was he wrong in any of his arguments, however Eric didn't agree to help the coup for those reasons. He had other motives, the first was the fact that there was a sense of futility at the CDC—a sense that they were just going through the motions. It was as if everyone knew they were doomed as a species. It came out in their work and in their reports: there wasn't a single bright spot, nor a ray of hope in all the experiments. Had there been one, Eric would've risked his life to keep the CDC sacrosanct.
And his other rationale was that the admiral made it clear that Eric would be killed if he didn’t help.
Therefore he took the camera, and the satellite phone, and the encrypted laptop and went back to the Secretary with false promises on his lips.
The pictures of the facility, both inside and out were easy to come by, “For my scrapbook,” he had said when asked. It was the technical information, the troop numbers, the location of air defenses and their counts, the fuel situation of the Strykers, things of that nature that took him days to ascertain.
It was difficult, but it gave him hope that the admiral was being true to his word that he was looking for a surgical operation with the fewest casualties. “I could just level the place with Tomahawk cruise missiles,” he had said. “However the facility has proved its worth as a forward operating base and in these days that can't be overlooked.” Eric didn't know what the man meant by that exactly, but it was a relief nonetheless.
Finally when he had all the information he needed, Eric sent his encrypted message containing every possible bit of knowledge he had come by and then he waited feeling sick to his stomach, regretting his decision and yet not regretting it at the same time. He went back and forth literally as well as figuratively, pacing his room, wondering if it wasn't too late to take it back.
The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse Page 34