The aide froze like a statue and didn’t move.
“We’re on the verge of World War Three,” the general said with a deep voice like a history lecturer. “The UN thinks we’re building a biological weapon here. They saw something via their satellite, but they don’t understand yet what it is. We’ve told them we’re having major military training. They bought it. But not for long. Then we told them there was social unrest in the city. They didn’t believe us. Then we threatened the damn Americans we’ll blow their satellites out of the orbit if they don’t stop snooping around. Ironically, building a biological weapon is what we’re going to do once we’re able to harness the virus. They have given us this fine idea themselves.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said indignantly. “Do you want to weaponize the virus?”
“Man is prone to mess with laws of nature, Doctor,” the general said. “You know, there’s some poetry in science. Those words you said the other day. What are they? Ah, a virus chimera. How beautiful it sounds. Doesn’t it, Andrei?”
The aide nodded with a stiff smile.
“Insane maniacs,” Dr. Obukhova said. “I hope that nature will not allow these mutations.”
The general said, “Nature has already interfered with our lives by bringing the meteorite here.”
“You have no idea of the consequences. If you do it, you’ll be court-martialed when it’s over.”
“No. When this is over, I will be a filthy rich man.”
“What you’re going to do is a crime against humanity.”
The general smiled. “I’m a soldier. There are orders. I follow them. I don’t take responsibility for what the chief decision makers order me to do.”
This civilian is really setting me on edge, he thought.
He added, “In the West, they know about most of what’s going on in Chelyabinsk. And they’re sure we’ve caused it. The NATO is threatening to send in troops in Russia. If the virus falls into their hands, that will have severe consequences. That’s why we’re going to burn all the evidence. The whole city is going to be one big incinerator.”
“What do you mean?”
“On March 2, the city will be wiped from the face of the planet. Four nuclear missiles will be enough, I think. No one will go near the place for decades. So our secret will be safe.”
“Oh, God,” Dr. Obukhova said.
The general noted with satisfaction that the gun in her hand was trembling.
He went on, “That 1957 Kyshtym nuclear disaster, remember? After the explosion at the Mayak power plant, ten thousand people were evacuated. Thirty-two thousand square miles exposed to hot particles. This whole shit had been covered up by the Soviet regime. The world got to know the truth only eighteen years after the incident.”
The aide added. “The press got to know about the Chernobyl disaster only in two days. All this time the story was kept in the shadows.”
“But we’re living in the twenty-first century,” Dr. Obukhova said. “We can’t hide everything from the media. People have cameras and smartphones.”
“It was a good thing we disabled the Internet and phone communications on the first day of the crisis. We’ve told the media that there was a chemical incident at the zinc plant after the meteorite explosion.”
“What about the foreigners who managed to leave the city? They would spread the word.”
“The foreigners, huh? They wouldn’t understand what was going on if the locals didn’t understand it as well. No foreigner could get away. We bombed the airport and the railroads. We blocked the roads. We have one hundred thousand soldiers stationed around the city. It’s one-tenth of the active personnel of the whole country. It’s the biggest concentration of armed forces. The Steel Ring Operation was a success.”
The woman was speechless.
“If we don’t strike Chelyabinsk,” the general went on, “the West will eventually strike it. They will come to the same conclusion but it would be too late. The virus would spread all over the country. If not all over the world.”
“Can’t we save the city?” Dr. Obukhova said.
“No, we can’t. We’ll have to sacrifice it. The virus is too contagious.”
Dr. Obukhova lowered her gun for a fraction, because it was heavy to hold still, and at this moment the lieutenant turned suddenly around and tried to hit her with his elbow. She stuck the syringe in his chest through his tie and uniform shirt. The man gasped, opened his mouth like a fish thrown on the shore and looked at the syringe, terror in his eyes. She pushed the plunger. Blood rushed to his face. He rushed at her, and she fired the gun. The man grabbed the air in front of him with his fingers and fell on the carpet.
She staggered and looked at the body. Then she looked at her hand holding the empty syringe. Blood dripped from the broken tip of its needle.
“You’re going to pay for this,” she said to the general. “You’ll burn in hell.”
“We’ll keep the research going, but without you,” the general said matter-of-factly. “We won’t need your services anymore.”
“What?”
“You’re fired.”
There was a gunshot from behind the woman. The sound echoed and reverberated through the spacious office. It was followed by a tinkle of brass dropping on the floor, and the thud sound of a falling body. The dead doctor had a hole in the back of her head.
Captain Mikhailov stepped into the room, his gun in front of him. The syringe rolled out of the woman’s hand and the glass barrel of the syringe blinked in the lamplight. He bent down to pick it up.
“Be careful with that stuff,” the general said.
“Nah,” the captain said. “It’s just distilled water. She wouldn’t do such a thing. I know her. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
The general took a look at the heaps of accumulated papers.
“All right,” he said. “Help me to clean up this mess.”
He looked at his dead aide. “What a shame. At least, he was an honest fellow and didn’t pretend he liked the billiards. I hate bullshitters.”
In five minutes, four soldiers came with stretchers to take the dead bodies away so that the general could comfortably continue working in his office.
***
They burned the corpses of Lieutenant Skoptsov and Dr. Obukhova in the portable incinerators placed in the yard of the research institute.
As the paperwork was done, Captain Mikhailov helped the general to break all the cameras and hard drives with hammers. All the CCTV recordings were fed to the flames, too.
The paperwork part was the easiest. To liquidate the undead bodies was the hardest. They used all the twenty-six soldiers deployed at the research station. They shot all of the fifty-something subjects in the head and put them on wheeled stretchers and carted them away to the incinerators. In three hours everything was finished.
General Petrov sat in his chair and leaned back. He uncorked a bottle of cognac he had been keeping for a special occasion.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number.
The voice on the other end of the line said, “Captain Voyevodin.”
“Report the situation,” said the general, pouring the cognac into a glass.
“The North-Western station is down, Comrade General.”
“I still need Patient Zero’s head.”
There was an awkward silence. Finally, Captain Voyevodin said, “My drones are still searching for Ex-Major Gavrilov. He has stolen the object from us.”
“Well, you better bring it today. This day can end in two ways for you—either you have a gorgeous dinner with me tonight, celebrating your advance in rank, or you stay in the city for good. Understood?”
“Affirmative,” the captain said in a colorless voice.
The general cradled the phone and looked at the sparkling ruby-colored liquid in his glass. He had some free time ahead of him. He never mixed work with home, so there was no crucial paperwork at his temporary residence. He took a small sip and dru
mmed his fingers on the desktop. “Well, about time to pack my things now.”
***
Captain Mikhailov was about to take off his hazmat suit when one of the soldiers called him on the intercom. All the test subjects had been destroyed. Most of the work was done. So what now? The captain got irritated on the spot. But the soldier spoke rapidly and sounded urgent. Reluctantly, the captain went down into the basement again.
The grunt was waiting for him in the basement corridor. A big plowboy. Half of his face was covered with zits. There was no one in the basement. All the other privates were outside, manning the incinerators.
“Comrade Captain,” the soldier said. “Take a look at what I found.”
There was a video camera in his hands. It was a heavy expensive piece. Wide lenses and stuff.
“The order is to burn everything,” Captain Mikhailov said. “Why are you bothering me with such nonsense?”
The soldier turned the camera and showed the captain the CNN logo on its side.
Captain Mikhailov took it quickly. “Where did you find it?”
“Over there,” the soldier pointed. “In that room. There are also two bodies we haven’t disposed of yet.”
He led the captain to the room where they used to store newly arrived species. There were two zipped body bags on the floor next to a dark blue duffel bag.
The captain unzipped the body bags. Two dead persons. A man and a woman. There were no bullet holes in their heads. The body bags were not labeled with the biohazard sign.
“When did these arrive?” Captain Mikhailov said. “And from where?”
“Last night. Around midnight. From Chebarkul, the meteorite fall site.”
“They’ve been brought here by mistake, probably,” the captain said. “They were not infected.”
The soldier picked up the duffel bag. “This is where I found the camera.”
He unzipped the duffel bag and took out spare shirts, notepads, a set of pens and pencils, two microphones, CDs, a mini-disc recorder, flash memories, and name tags. The notes in the notepads were written in English.
The captain took one name tag. In the photo, there was a smiling woman. Definitely American. Only American women had that kind of a smile—wide and cocksure. He ran his fingers on the text under the laminated plastic. His grasp of English was minimal, but he understood the words printed on the name tag. Press. CNN. He could figure out the name, too. Helen Carter.
He grabbed the second name tag. A Chinese or Korean guy in the photo. Brian Kwok. Press. CNN. The camera guy, most probably.
The captain tossed all the items back into the duffel bag and zipped up the body bags. He turned to the soldier. “Get rid of this shit. Right away!”
FORTY
They couldn’t stay on the rooftop anymore. Even if they didn’t burn alive or suffocate from smoke, they would die of hunger and hypothermia. The external fire escape was their only way out. It was mounted to the outside of the hotel and led all the way down to the first floor.
Andy wandered in his thoughts and feelings. He seemed for the first time at a loss. He really didn’t know what to do once they reached the bottom of the stairs. These people trusted him. They were following him. Like blind men following a blind man. He wasn’t to blame. He wasn’t a military strategist or survivalist. He was a mere hotel manager.
He thought they would have to either fight their way through the crowds of ghouls gathered in the yard or get inside the burning building again. They were between two fires. Actually, between one fire and a horde of flesh-eating monsters, waiting for them on the ground.
I can’t find a solution here, Andy thought. My role of a multitasking energizer bunny is long gone.
Marcel was the first to go down the stairs. Andy followed him, his boots clanking on the metal gratings, shaking off the snow and ice. He held his breath as he passed the burning windows on the fourteenth floor, obscured by the black smoke. The thick snowfall and the smoke reduced visibility to zero. The sun was hidden somewhere behind the gray clouds.
Two stories down.
For Mimi, the task of descending was extremely difficult. The gratings were slippery, and Zhang Wei and Ksenia prompted her each step of the way.
Dima was getting worse. He had the chills, and he was moving as if his feet were made of cotton. His mother was holding his hand, her stare vacant.
It seemed only Marcel knew what he was doing. He was alert. He was focused, figuring out what actions to take next. He wasn’t grumbling about not having enough of ammo or lack of firearms. A fighter like him could use any terrain as a weapon.
Three more stories down.
A sudden rush of wind passed Andy by. His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a dark long object falling on his right-hand side and spiraling down.
“Oh, nein,” he heard Dr. Brodde say. “Nein, nein!”
Marcel stopped. Andy stopped, too. They looked up. Up above them, everything was engulfed in the mix of snow and smoke. There were loud shouts and sounds of commotion.
“Are you all right?” Andy said.
“I can’t hold him anymore,” Dr. Brodde said. His voice sounded desperate.
Andy rushed up the stairs. He pushed past Ksenia and Alyona. The little boy, Dima, was dangling from the edge of the platform. There was a wide gap where the baluster should have been. Dr. Brodde was holding the kid by the right sleeve of his jacket. The boy’s right mitten was missing. Ludmila was trying to reach her son. But she couldn’t. He was too far. She was sobbing and begging for help.
“Hold on!” Andy shouted.
The old man’s fingers were shaking. The boy was kicking the air below him, his little face wrinkled in terror. The platform bounced as Andy approached it and lay flat on his stomach with his hands outstretched.
“Come on, boy,” Andy said. “Give me your other hand.”
Dima tried to give him his left hand, but he failed. He was weak from his illness and he was too afraid.
There was a sound of tearing fabric. Dr. Brodde clamped his shaking fist with his last bit of strength.
“Dima, give me your hand!” Andy yelled.
The boy was too shocked to comprehend what was going on.
Andy heard Marcel’s voice behind him and said, “Marcel, grab my legs. I’ll have to lower myself to get him.”
Marcel sat on Andy’s legs, pressing them to the grating with all his weight. Andy lowered himself so that he was able to touch the boy. He reached out and grabbed his left sleeve. At this moment, the right sleeve tore off. Dima’s right arm slipped out of the sleeve but at the last second, Andy managed to catch him by the left wrist.
“Hang on,” Andy growled. A thread of spittle trickled down his cheek on the ice-cold metal grating.
He wanted to extend his other hand to clutch Dima by the collar, but the boy’s hand slipped out of the mitten, and the kid vanished in the whirl of snow.
This image was burned into Andy’s memory forever. A scared little boy, his limbs flailing frantically. Drowning in the whirlwind of snow.
Andy looked down at the mitten clenched in his hand. It was still warm. It was dark blue with a white embroidered reindeer fawn.
For one long second, there was silence all around him. Andy let go of the mitten and closed his eyes. He wanted to open his mouth to ask Marcel to pull him back, but his muscles seemed to be paralyzed. He didn’t want to look the boy’s mother in the eyes. He had no desire to open his eyes and keep on moving. To lead these people further. He had to admit he was a failure. He wished Marcel let go of his legs so he could tumble over into the semidarkness, following this innocent soul.
Then he heard a woman’s scream. It was loud and heart-rending.
Marcel and Ivan helped him get up.
Ludmila was on her knees, looking down over the edge. Sobbing was shaking her body. Slowly, she sat down on the platform, her legs dangling.
What happened next happened very quickly.
No one ever got a chance to utter a word or
do something. The woman jumped down, and her flailing body disappeared in the whirling snow.
***
The lower they descended, the more audible were the slavering sounds of the vermin, devouring the fresh meat that had happened to fall from above right to their feet.
Andy looked down at the disgusting creatures feasting on the remains of the poor woman and her son.
“Gott im Himmel,” Dr. Brodde whispered. He made a cross sign.
“How did it happen?” Andy asked.
“The boy just slipped on the ladder,” Dr. Brodde said. “The railing broke.”
Ksenia shook her head. “What a terrible way to die.”
They stood on the lowest level of the fire escape, which was a moveable design. It could be slid down along a track. Easy to come down but difficult to climb up. Prevention from thieves. The ghouls could not access the fire escape from the ground. All they could do was to growl like wild beasts, which they had become, and reach their hands toward them in a hungry despair.
About two hundred yards away there was a small one-storied outhouse with a small window.
Marcel pointed toward it. “What’s over there?”
“A shed,” Andy said.
“What’s in it?”
“Just some tools janitors and gardeners use—shovels, brooms, shears. Stuff like that.”
“Shovels is good,” Marcel said. “We can use them as weapons.”
Ivan looked at the table leg he was holding. It was splintered and battered. Another good blow and it would break in half. “Brooms would be nice, too. And shears.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Marcel said. “I’ll jump down and distract the things. Meanwhile, you run to the shed. I’ll buy you some time. There’s a lot of open space in the yard. Enough for maneuvering and dodging. But we have to do it quickly. Two hundred yards shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
“I’ll cover you,” Andy said, hefting his ax.
Ivan and Ingvar nodded.
Marcel said, “Shouldn’t be a problem. Just run as fast as you can.”
“We’ll make it,” Ksenia said.
Marcel lowered the ladder and stepped cautiously down. He reached the ground safely and switched his machine gun fire selector to single shots.
The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad Page 37