The man said reluctantly, “I had to. I had no other choice. I had to protect my brother. Always did. Since he’s been born.”
“Your brother is a dirty bag of stinky meat now,” Gavrilov said. “You can’t help him. He’s not the person you used to know. He’s infected, see? He’s dangerous. Let’s take him to the docs. They’ll sort out how to fix him.”
“The fuck do you care?” the colonel said. “I know what they’re going to do with him. Turn him into a lab rat. For the rest of his life! It would take dozens of years to crack the code of the virus and produce a cure. This isn’t a proper life. And this isn’t proper death, either. But I won’t let this happen. I won’t let it happen to my brother!”
“Then kill him,” Gavrilov said. “Put an end to his suffering. He’s suffered enough by the look of him.”
Colonel Bandurov pressed his gun hand to his forehead. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” There were dark circles under his eyes. He was exhausted and on the verge of a breakdown.
“If you don’t want to live, let other people live,” Gavrilov said.
Colonel Bandurov’s eyes narrowed to slits. He looked at Gavrilov with contempt. “People? No, you’re not people. How many people did you kill before the government decided that you’d better be eliminated? You’re no better than those ghouls outside. You shouldn’t have come here.”
“I saw dead men lying around out there in the yard,” Gavrilov said. “Convicts. In orange suits, like mine here. They had not been infected. Do you know what it means?”
“They tried to escape, probably,” Colonel Bandurov said. “They won’t set you free, can’t you see? Capital punishment is prohibited in Russia. So the government has thought of a legal way of killing you, to write you off the inventory. And if this fuckup gets out of hand, and it actually has, they’ll introduce emergency situation mode in the country. And then your heads will fly first.”
“What about you?” Gavrilov said. “You’re free to go. You’re a military officer. Just go to your people.”
“No, I can’t. Once I go to “our” people, I’ll be sent to a quarantine zone. For an uncertain period. They still don’t know how exactly this virus spreads.”
“Escape from this building. Go to ground.”
“There’s nowhere to run. They’re going to bomb this city next week.”
Gavrilov frowned. “Do you know this for a fact?”
“Yes.”
“Take this thing off and come with us.”
“No. I can’t. It’s too late already. No one can take it off now,” Colonel Bandurov said. “If I unplug any of the cords or cut them, Pavel’s blood pressure will drop, and there’ll be an explosion.”
“Then consider that you’re present at your brother’s funeral,” Gavrilov said. “Say your final words and let it be over.”
“Screw you!” the colonel said.
The man was freaking Gavrilov out. He wanted to cut his tongue off. Of course, he himself didn’t trust the government and the military. He didn’t believe they would give them their freedom and all those benefits. He just wanted to die like a soldier.
He made a step toward the man, his hands still on top of his head. The creature in the bed made a scary growl and fixed his eyes on Gavrilov. Foamy drool came down his chin.
Gavrilov made another step forward.
“Don’t fucking move!” the colonel screamed, “or you’re a dead man!”
“I’m already dead. Inside,” Gavrilov said. “Actually, I came here to die. It doesn’t really matter how it happens—from a zombie’s bite or from a bullet.”
“Let it be a bullet then,” the colonel said, his finger poised to squeeze the trigger.
Gavrilov stopped near the bed. “Sorry, my friend. Can’t leave without him.”
“You can have Pasha,” Colonel Bandurov said, “only over my dead body.”
“As you wish,” Gavrilov said as he snatched a knife he had hidden in his collar and threw it into the man’s throat, his only unprotected body part.
Colonel Bandurov made a shrieking sound like a wounded seagull and fired his gun, sending the bullet into Gavrilov’s chest. The bulletproof vest stopped the bullet, but he felt a terrible pain as if his rib had been broken. Gavrilov ducked to avoid a blast in his face. Then he straightened up quickly and delivered a kick to the knife handle. The gun slipped out of Bandurov’s hands and clattered down to the floor next to him. He grabbed at the air trying to get hold of the knife handle and tumbled down on the bed right on top of his ex-brother.
The Patient Zero’s mouth found the Spetznaz man’s flesh, and the monster clamped his jaws on it. The colonel did not scream, as the knife had severed the vocal cords and choked the throat opening. Blood erupted from the wound in long bright red spurts. The man’s body convulsed as the patient’s teeth ripped through the skin of the dying man.
Gavrilov realized he had to act quickly because the bomb could go off any second now once the blood pressure dropped. He knelt beside Colonel Bandurov and took the knife out. The wound opened, and a fountain of blood gushed out. The colonel’s gaze froze, and he stopped twitching.
Every second was tangible now. Gavrilov drove the knife into Ex-Pavel Bandurov’s throat, grabbed the monster’s hair with his gloved hand and started making quick sawing movements. The serrated edges of the knife were cutting the flesh like butter. The knife struck a bone, and Gavrilov had to apply some extra force to break the neck bones. A speck of blood spattered on his cheek, and he immediately wiped it off with his sleeve. Panic seeped into his soul. He could get infected this way! But the infection must be the least of his concerns at the moment. He gave a couple of more violent hits to the mutilated neck, and, finally, the head came off. He grabbed it by the hair and sprinted toward the exit in long strides.
There was a deafening bang, and his heart skipped a beat, as the shock wave that followed pushed him in the back and sent him sprawling on the floor. Broken glass and pieces of plaster flew around him. A large piece of metal thrust into his shoulder blade and terrible pain reached him through the thick of his jacket. The wide window shattered outward in a shower of glass and cement. Gavrilov covered the severed head with his body, taking another hit from a flying piece of metal. Dark red light sparked inside his head, and his consciousness dived into blackness.
***
He woke up to Bulldog slapping his cheeks. He snapped his eyes open and felt warm blood trickling down his neck.
“Just a scratch,” Bulldog said. “You’ll live through with it.”
Gavrilov stood from the dusty floor and didn’t bother to pat himself clean. Flinching with pain, he took a look at the demolition the Spetznaz man had created. The savage blast tore the bed to pieces. The charred body parts of Patient Zero and his brother were strewn all over the place. The windows were knocked out by the shock wave, and the cold wind waltzed the mix of snowflakes and cement particles around the room.
The wound on Gavrilov’s shoulder was nasty.
“Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed.
Just a scratch, yeah, he thought. I’m bleeding like a frigging hog.
Patient Zero’s head was intact. Gavrilov picked up a half-burned pillow and ripped the pillowcase off it and wrapped the head in it. Then he took off his gloves, which had traces of blood on them and could possibly infect him, and tossed them on the floor.
“All right, motherfuckers,” he said to his companions. “Mission accomplished—we got his head now.”
He tossed the pillowcase wrap to Joker. The man caught it, lifted a flap and took a look inside. “Fuck! This is what I probably look like when I have a hangover!”
Captain Voyevodin’s voice crackled in Afghan’s helmet, “Afghan, this is Echo One. Please advise on your status. We’re receiving unsatisfactory visuals. Over.”
Gavrilov spoke into Afghan’s mike, “Echo One, this is Maestro. We’ve done our part of the deal. Now it’s your turn. Get the cash ready for us. Over.”
“A deal is a deal,�
� Captain Voyevodin said. “The extraction point is on the rooftop. Echo One out.”
They patched Gavrilov’s shoulder as best as they could and started walking along the hallway.
Gavrilov halted. “You go to the rooftop. I’ll catch up. I got some business I have to attend to.” He weighed his knife in his hand and went back to the ICU room.
***
They stood on the rooftop watching the DVR being lifted up to the helicopter on a rope. It was hovering above them because hospital roofs in Russia are not equipped with a helipad.
“All right, Major,” Captain Voyevodin’s metallic voice boomed through a loudspeaker. It was the first time he used Gavrilov’s rank. “Climb up and hand it over.”
They dropped a rope ladder for him. Afghan and Bulldog footed the end of the ladder. Gavrilov looked up at the chopper and saw silhouettes inside the cabin wearing yellow hazmat suits. He showed them an okay sign and shouldered the backpack which contained the severed head. He started climbing. The ascent was shaky, as the ladder moved from side to side under the blasts of piercing wind. The pain in the shoulder was bad but manageable. The bleeding had stopped.
As Gavrilov got to the top of the ladder, he could see the captain closer now. Mid-thirties. Receding hairline. Well-built. Gray metallic eyes. One of the soldiers in a hazmat suit took the backpack from Gavrilov, looked inside it and gave an approving nod to the captain.
“Nice job, Major!” Captain Voyevodin said smiling and extended his hand.
Gavrilov wanted to shake it, but at this moment the helicopter raised in the air, and the ladder slipped from under the men’s feet below. The captain’s heavy army boot kicked him in the face. Gavrilov lost his grip, and his leg got tangled in the rope ladder as he fell. He screamed as the killing pain penetrated his shoulder. He looked down. The earth started rotating beneath him, and the cold wind sucked into his lungs. Upside down, Gavrilov felt blood rapidly rushing to his head.
The helicopter flew to the side of the building and rammed Gavrilov against the wall. He hit the wall, and burning pain exploded in his shoulder like a nuclear bomb. With a gasp, he grabbed a downspout and clung to it. It was rusty and gave a screeching sound under his weight. The downspout tore off the building and landed against the balcony railing on the sixth floor. He held tight onto the balcony just in time before the downspout crashed down. He looked hurriedly up and saw the captain training a gun at him. Gavrilov bent over the railing and ducked behind it. Two bullets hit the metal above his head and ricocheted away.
Up on the rooftop, Bulldog opened fire at the helicopter. The chopper machine guns riddled him with bullets, leaving behind a heap of tattered meat and clothes. The rest of Gavrilov’s crew took cover under the squalling rain of deadly lead.
Immediately after that an avalanche of large caliber bullets hammered down on the balcony and ripped through the metal, plastic, and plaster. The killing fire was searching for Gavrilov’s flesh.
He tugged the door handle. The door was locked. He pulled it with all his might. Useless. He glanced around quickly for something to break the door glass with. He spotted a stretcher tucked in the corner and grabbed it. He drove the stretcher into the window, sending a shower of glass into the room. He kicked the door and the pieces of glass on the window edge fell off. He dived through the window headfirst and landed on the floor.
The roar of the machine guns followed him to the room, and pieces of plastic and glass tumbled on top of him. He rolled to the wall, looking desperately for cover.
The room was small, and he saw two undead patients wearing pajamas walking toward him from the farther corner of the room. As they reached the line of fire, their bodies started jerking, being ribboned by bullets. One of them, a bald male, was shredded to bloodstained chunks. The other, a young man with a catheter dangling from his arm, was torn in half at the waist, coils of guts splashing wetly on the floor.
The torn zombie started crawling toward him.
A bullet hit the radiator, and the surge of water leaked on the floor. It formed a big pool, which reached Gavrilov in a matter of seconds. The water was cold.
He crept under a bed.
The speed with which the bullets were destroying the room was crazy. Pieces of the expensive medical equipment were flying around. He felt twice that something hit his boot, but he did not feel pain.
Then the bullet storm ceased. By the sound of it, the helicopter flew higher and redirected its fire on the roof. In a minute the shooting was over, and the helicopter roared away.
Gavrilov stayed down for a couple more seconds, his body drenched with the cold water. He shook off the glass pieces and took a quick look at himself. The heel of his left boot was chipped. No fresh wounds. Bleeding started anew, but the pain in his shoulder was manageable.
Then he took courage to look out from under the bed.
A hand thrust at his face. The half-zombie had survived the firing. He forgot all about him. He was quick enough to intercept it before the ghoul could grab him. He broke the hand, took his head in his hands and gave it a sharp twist to break the spinal cord. The attacker’s half-body became limp and stopped moving.
Then Gavrilov crawled out, water dripping from him, lay on his back and exhaled loudly.
SEVENTEEN
“Voila!” said Valery, the sanitary engineer, a skinny man in his late forties with round spectacles, as he removed the manhole cover. He let it drop on the garage cement floor with a heavy clank and looked at Andy, Ramses, and Steve with a grin. The stench coming from the sewage was overpowering.
“Ah, thank you, Valera,” Andy said.
Ramses looked down into the manhole and pressed a handkerchief to his nose. “Jeezus almighty! No way!”
“Totally yes way,” Steve said.
“After you then, Master Splinter,” Ramses said.
“It’s the only way we got if we want to get outside,” Andy said. “And besides, all sewage smells the same.”
They were in Andy’s personal garage. A separate elevator connected the garage with the penthouse, but as there was no power, they had used the stairs to come down here.
Andy’s silver Jaguar XJR sat in the corner.
“Hey, beaut,” Andy said. He put his hand on the shiny car roof.
“Nice wheels, man,” Ramses noted.
“Thanks,” Andy said. “I’d take her out for a spin if the road were clear.”
Ramses went to the gates and looked through one of the round windows at a crowd of raging undead. “Last time I saw such a mob was during a protest rally against the nudity ban back in San Francisco.”
Steve gave a slight chuckle. “Yeah. Which gives me warm memories.”
“Say, Andy,” Ramses said. “How do you spot the blind man at the nudist beach?”
“Erm,” Andy said. He thought for a while and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I give up.”
“Come on,” Ramses said. “It ain’t hard.”
Andy gave it a little more thought and smiled. Ramses bent double with laughter. Steve joined in. Valery did not understand a word, but he was laughing, too.
They roared with laughter and didn’t notice as eight more men entered the garage—Goran, Gleb, Marcel, Erkan, Stas, Igor, Ivan, and the Chinese guy. Their backpacks had been already packed. Some of the men had guns and machine guns. Most of them carried ad hoc weapons, like baseball bats and kitchen knives.
“Wow,” Andy said. “I didn’t expect so many volunteers.”
He looked at Igor Sorokin. “Oh, you sobered up, didn’t you? Good to know.”
Sorokin looked at his shoes in shame. “Sorry, boss,” he said. His eyes got wet, and he blinked his tears away fiercely.
Andy could smell alcohol reeking from him. He shook his head slowly. “No, pal. We can’t have you in our hunting party.” His glance shifted to Ivan. “You’re not going either. I need to have a good pair of eyes here to look after the place while we’re away.”
“No problem,” Ivan said. “Consider
it done.”
Andy looked at the Chinese man. “What’s your name, my friend?”
“Zhang Wei,” the man said shyly.
“I’m afraid you’re staying, too,” Andy said. “Thank you for your support, but your daughter needs you more here. But we’ll try to get some medicine for her.”
Zhang Wei nodded gratefully. “Thank you.”
It was clear that the man didn’t want to leave his blind daughter with strangers and go with them. But as a man, he had to offer his help. He was happy Andy had saved his face in front of other men.
“And besides you’re going to be on the night shift today, aren’t you?” Andy asked.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Zhang Wei said with a smile.
“We better hurry up,” Ramses said looking at the sky through the little window. “The day is dying.”
“Now excuse us, gentlemen,” Andy said.
Zhang Wei, Valery, and Ivan left. Sorokin remained standing where he was, his eyes fixed on the floor. He avoided looking at Andy or anyone else. Then he shouldered his backpack and went out.
“Never trusted cops,” Stas muttered. “Ex-cops especially.”
Andy blew on his hands to warm them up and took out a page he had torn out from a Yellow Pages catalog. He spread it on the hood of the Jag. The team gathered around the page. “We’ll start with the iron first. There’s an arms store here.” Andy made a pause to read. “That’s in Ulitsa Voroshilova. We’ll spend a night there if we’re lucky, and at dawn, we’ll move on to the nearest drugstore.”
“God, if it were not for those walking bastards, the trip would take half an hour by car,” Steve noted. “No less.”
“If it were not for those walking bastards, we wouldn’t need all that weaponry,” Ramses said. “Let’s not waste our time now. We gotta vamoose.”
Goran dropped his backpack down into the manhole and began climbing down. The rest of the crew followed him.
As Steve disappeared in the sewage, Ramses stood looking at the manhole for a while. “Yo, Steve! I wanna remind you that you’re paying me overtime when we get back. It’s in the contract, by the way.”
The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad Page 18