Labor and Delivery

by Jamie Davis

  “I wouldn’t be so cocky,” Kurt said. “By my count, there are only six other people in here besides yourself. We took out four of your friends outside. Are you the only remaining security officer here? I’m guessing there would be more than one or two of you for an installation this size.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve got a whole team in here.”

  “I’m not sure that you do,” Marci said. She picked up on what Kurt was trying to do. “You should probably just surrender now. We know you all have been keeping a vaccine away from the people of this world. We know you’ve been doing experiments on the infected to come up with additional medical solutions for the virus. Why don’t you surrender now and we’ll let you explain yourself to the authorities.

  “I don’t think you know as much as you think you do.”

  “We’ll see,” Kurt said. He reached up and pulled a small smoke grenade from his tactical harness. He nodded at Marci and pulled the pin, letting the lever fly off, charging it. He tossed it down the curving corridor towards the woman. Thick grey-green smoke filled the end of the hallway quickly.

  Kurt heard the gasps and coughs and knew the woman was effectively blinded. Now was their chance.

  He charged into the smoke. His baton held ready, he swung it at the first form he saw. The baton contacted the arm carrying the pistol, but the charge at the tip didn’t fire.

  The strike still managed to knock the pistol from the woman’s hand. Kurt ducked as she turned and threw a punch at his face.

  As he dodged the attack, he thrust outward with his baton, catching the woman in her midsection and this time the stun charge worked.

  Kurt stood and kicked the smoke grenade farther down the corridor. A klaxon alarm had started to sound via overhead speakers. The smoke from the grenade had finally set off the facility’s sensors. A few seconds later blowers came on as vents in the ceiling worked to suck the smoke away.

  Beside the vents, fire sprinklers went off and water rained down on Kurt and Marci in this section of the corridor. Ignoring the water streaming down from above, Kurt picked up the woman’s pistol and shoved it in the back of his belt before reaching down and searching her. He came up with a key card and ID badge.

  Kurt stood up and headed back down the hallway towards Marci. The smoke was starting to clear as the building’s ventilation system sucked the smoke out replacing it with fresh air.

  “We need to get out of here. Someone’s going to come down here and inspect what happened.”

  “There’s a door farther down at the end of the hallway,” Marci said. “That’s got to be where she was headed with the other guy. Let’s go check it out.”

  Kurt and Marci hurried down the hallway. They reached a door with a large window in the top half. Next to the door on the wall was a plaque labeling it as the control room.

  Kurt smiled and pulled the door open after swiping the keycard to gain entry. The room was unoccupied but there were monitors for security cameras all along one wall. Another wall had a series of environmental controls for the building. The rest of the control room had a few computer workstations built into desks along that wall.

  Kurt went over and studied the video monitors. He tried to figure out which monitors showed which part of the facility. He could see the spot in the corridor outside where the security specialist was laying in the hallway. Another view showed the unconscious man in the white lab coat at the hallway T-junction.

  He also saw a room that had a group about ten of the infected bunched in the center of it. They just stood there, milling around.

  Kurt pointed at the screen with the zombies. “Look, that’s where they’ve kept their specimens. This one over here is the hallway. And this group here must be for the living quarters. Look, there’s a kitchen and what looks like some dormitory rooms.”

  As the two of them watched, a group of six people in lab coats came out of one of the dormitory doors and looked down the hallway in what Kurt presumed it was the direction of the control room and the alarm. “I think we need to get ready for some company, Marci.”

  “We don’t need to worry about fighting them K.C. I’ve got another plan.”

  Kurt cocked his head to one side, confused by her statement. She pointed as the group of scientists moved down the corridor in their direction. As they walked past one of the doors, Marci reached up and pressed her finger on a button next to the screen. She had a wicked grin on her face as she did it.

  It only took a second for Kurt to realize what she’d done. “No, Marci. Not that.”

  It was too late. The door popped open next to the six scientists and the ten zombies surged out. Kurt turned away as the carnage ensued. They never had a chance against the ravenous zombies.

  “Marci, they didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

  “I beg to differ. That was the least they deserved.”

  Kurt couldn’t watch and turned away. Marci kept her eyes on the screen. She waited until the zombies had finished killing the rest of the facility staff, then pressed another button on the panel next to the locker room’s monitor.

  The door to the outside popped open.

  Marci reached down and picked up a microphone from the countertop. Toggling the switch, she leaned forward and said “Hey zombies, come on and get me. I am right down here.”

  Kurt turned his head to the monitor and watched in amazement as the zombies all stood up and turned towards the sound of the voice.

  Marci had keyed the speaker in the locker room and the zombies all ran towards the sound of her voice. As soon as they reached the locker room, she stopped talking. The door outside, however, was open and they all ran outside.

  She turned to Kurt and switched of the monitors. Her gaze was level and solid as steel. “They got what they deserved. This world didn’t have to end up this way and you know it. Because of them, we had to shoot down infected children, K.C., children! And it is all their fault.”

  Tears streamed down her face as the flood of emotions from the last week overcame her internal defenses.

  Kurt pulled her close and held her in his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder until her sobs subsided a minute or so later.

  Marci seemed to realize the awkwardness of her emotional response and pushed away from Kurt, wiping the tears from her face with the backs of her hands.

  “Let’s go and search the rest of the building,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Brent and the baby are still in here somewhere.”

  “No, he’s not,” a voice from the control room door said.

  Kurt and Marci spun around.

  The man in the lab coat Kurt had stunned in the corridor at the T-junction stood in the doorway. When he saw Marci’s rifle swing around in his direction, he raised his hands. “Don’t shoot. I surrender. I just want to get out of here and back home.”

  “Tell us what you meant when you said Brent wasn’t here. You know him?”

  “Yeah, he’s our boss. He’s the one who hired all of us over a year ago. He was here with an elf baby. When the fire alarm sounded, I woke up. I saw him come out of the bunk room with the baby and race down towards the locker room. Then I heard the infected coming and I ran down here to hide from them.”

  “Oh, no. The infected went outside after Brent and Allie did.” Marci yelled. “What did I do?”

  She turned around and stabbed a button to switch the monitors on that showed the scene outside. The infected no longer milled around out there. They had shuffled back into the building.

  There was also no sign of anyone else, alive or dead. Brent, the baby, and the four goons they’d left tied up there were all gone.

  Kurt cursed under his breath. The guy got away again. He’d gained four new allies and there were now ten zombies blocking their exit.

  Chapter 21

  Kurt and Marci stared at the video replay on the monitors as Brent freed the four lab techs tied up outside the entrance. Together they all ran off into the woods. They w
ere well away before the zombies burst out of the locker room outside.

  Now those zombies were banging on the control room door and window, trying to get in at the only live food left in the building. They’d already killed the stunned female security officer left in the corridor outside. So far, for their sakes, the door’s lock held the zombies at bay.

  Kurt shook his head. “We don’t have enough ammo to shoot our way out of here, Marci. We’ve got to come up with another way to clear the halls.”

  “I don’t know what we can do.” She sounded exasperated. “If there was some sort of an armory here or weapons room, we might be able to arm up with more firepower and shoot our way out. Of course, we can’t get past them to get to the armory anyway. What do you think?”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work. There’s probably something like that in this facility but I have no idea where it is, and neither do you.”

  “I know where the security room is,” the captured lab tech volunteered. “That’s where all the weapons are kept. But it’s all the way at the other side of the building.”

  “That might as well be back on Earth Prime and we have no guarantee there’s anything there worth going after. I say we figure out a way to break out of here and get after Brent.” Marci said. “I could try the speaker thing again, but it won’t work as long as they can see us. Those infected aren’t too bright. I might be able to fool them again if we could hide somehow.”

  Kurt nodded to the lab tech. “Take off your lab coat and use it to cover the window in the door. That way the zombies can’t see inside the control room anymore. If we’re out of sight and out of mind, we might convince the zombies we aren’t in here anymore.”

  The lab tech took off his coat and held it up over the large window in the door. The zombies outside initially became more frenzied as he approached. They settled down a little as soon as he covered the window.

  “Now what?” Kurt asked.

  “Now we wait and see if they lose interest enough to fall for the speaker gag again. I’ll try and lure them to the other end of the building past the locker room entrance. Even if they don’t go all the way down the corridor, we should be able to slip past them and get to the locker room.”

  Marci sat down at the controls for the monitors and pulled the microphone over. She flipped a switch on the control panel and reached over and pressed the button to key the mic. “Testing, testing, one, two, three. Hey, all you zombies out there, can you hear me?”

  Marci watched the monitors while she talked. The zombies on the cameras all stared at the ceiling. A few of them reached up to try to touch the speaker.

  Marci reached up to the control panel and flipped a few switches. She reached down and keyed the mic again, saying, “Hey, zombie shoppers. There is a blue light special for you down this hallway. Come and get it. Fresh brains while they last.“

  The zombies started shuffling down the corridor away from the control room.

  “It’s working, Marci. Keep it up. Keep drawing them in.”

  “Yup, get the brains while they last. You can find all the best bargains on your favorite zombie treats including brains, eyeballs, and liver. Yes, liver. It’s not just for torturing children anymore.”

  Kurt laughed and Marci shrugged. Apparently, it didn’t matter what she said as long as she kept talking, though. All of the zombies in the hallway outside the control room had moved down the hall to the T-junction. All the while, Marci continued her running litany of shopping references as she kept drawing them farther and farther away from the control room.

  The infected followed the sound as it continued to draw them away. They were almost all past the hallway leading towards the exit.

  “Crap,” Kurt exclaimed. “Look.” He pointed to the video from outside the control room. Two of the infected had turned around and moved back to the control room door. The other eight didn’t notice them and continued shambling away towards the far side of the building.

  “It’s just two of them,” Marci said. “Let me keep drawing the others away.”

  Marci continued talking over the loudspeaker system while Kurt moved over to the control room door. He turned and looked over his shoulder, checking the monitor. The two zombies still stood outside facing the doorway as if waiting for the image of their prey to appear again.

  “Aw, the hell with this.” Kurt shoved the lab tech holding his coat over the window out of the way and unlocked the control room door, yanking it open.

  He drew his pistol and fired a double tap shot into each zombie’s head. Their bloody brains splattered against the far wall as the two of them collapsed in a heap by the door.

  Kurt kicked at one of the bodies with his foot to clear it from the doorway, then closed it again, locking it once more. Until they were ready to make a break for it, he didn’t want to leave that door unsecured.

  “I took care of those two. What about the others?”

  Marci smiled. “I think I’ve done about as good as I’m going to be able to do. Four of them are milling around outside the dormitory rooms right now. The rest of them are just standing in the hallway between there and the T-junction.”

  “If they spot us, it’s going to be a foot race, Marci. Are you up to this?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope, I guess this is why we get the big bucks.”

  “What about me?” The lab tech asked. “You can’t leave me here all alone?”

  “I can shoot you like you deserve,” Marci offered.

  “No, no, that’s fine. I just didn’t want to be left behind.”

  Kurt shook his head. “You’ve done some horrible stuff while you’ve been here. Leaving you alone to face the consequences of your actions is a perfect solution. The gateway is just a week’s travel to the east. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make it. For now, you’ll step back and stay out of our way. I will say this, if we see you again while we’re on this mission, I’ll let Marci shoot you.”

  The tech raised his hands and stepped back away from the door. Marci drew her pistols, one in each hand and went over to stand by the exit.

  Kurt stepped up and reached for the keypad to unlock it.

  “Let’s keep the shooting to a minimum if we can,” he cautioned his partner. “We don’t know when we’re going to need those last few rounds later on, and we’ll only draw their attention if we start dropping zombies in the hallway. Let’s count on stealth and speed to get us out of here.”

  Marci smiled and nodded. With the flip of his hand to disengage the lock, he opened the door. Marci started outside to cover the entry while Kurt moved out behind her. They worked their way quickly along the passageway keeping themselves to the right-hand wall and hugging the inside of the curved corridor.

  They soon heard groans and the shuffling of feet and knew they were close to where the zombies milled around near the junction. As soon as they reached the passage to the locker room and the exit, they were going to have about a twenty-meter run before they reached the entrance to the locker room.

  Kurt tapped Marci on the shoulder and she looked back in his direction. “Don’t stop for anything. Got that?”

  She nodded and turned back to the front, pistols ready. Kurt tapped her shoulder again and she sprinted forward. He ran right behind her.

  At first, luck was with them. They made it almost all the way to the T-junction before any of the zombies down the corridor spotted them. Marci held her pistols at the ready but didn’t fire.

  As they turned the corner towards the locker room, Marci barreled straight into a zombie shuffling back in their direction. The collision knocked both of them from their feet.

  Without missing a beat, Kurt fired two pistol shots into the back of the zombie’s head. Then he reached down and pulled Marci back to her feet. He heard grunts and movement behind him but didn’t look back.

  He just yanked Marci’s arm and yelled, “Run.”

  They burst through the locker room door and Kurt turned and slammed i
t shut. There wasn’t a lock and he cursed.

  Thinking fast, he reached over and tipped a section of the metal lockers over in front of the door. It was a struggle but Marci moved to help him and together they were able to wedge the corner of the lockers against the back side of the locker room door. There was pounding on the far side and the lockers started to shift.

  “We need to get out of here, Marci. If we can get outside and out of sight, they won’t be able to follow us. They aren’t that smart.”

  Marci was way ahead of him. She moved to the exit door and held up the keycard to open it. With a buzz, it popped open and she ran outside.

  Kurt was right behind her. As he sprinted through the doorway, he heard a crash behind him followed by the increased volume of groans and grunts from the zombies.

  “This way,” Marci yelled and they took off in the direction of their campsite from the previous evening.

  Kurt and Marci raced through the dense underbrush and woods. Neither of them stopped to look back behind them until they reached the small open space where they’d left their backpacks and supplies stashed under a fallen log.

  Kurt crouched down behind the log and looked back for the first time. “There’s no sign of any of them behind us, Marci. I think we might have made it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I think we need to get moving, though. Brent’s got an hour’s lead on us. How’s that tracking spell of yours? Do you think you can fire it up again so we can follow the baby?”

  “Already on it.”

  Kurt concentrated and his eyes began to glow with a blue-white light again. He moved back towards the trail leading away from the hidden lab. Sure enough, he picked up the baby’s trail leading away from the complex.

  “I’ve got it. Come on. It’s still fresh.”

  Marci moved up behind him. She’d holstered one pistol but kept one ready in her right hand. She checked behind them frequently to make sure none of the zombies caught up to them by surprise.