As much as the countdown to sunset clamored in the back of my head, taking my time came with one advantage: Richards and Cole were halfway across the debris field by the time I could check on their progress, and while it was slow going, they easily outpaced the shamblers that kept trying to rush after them. Throwing caution to the wind, I started toward the gap in the building myself, my left shoulder almost brushing against the cement balustrade. Fifteen cars, ten, then five, and finally I reached the last vehicle. By then, the other two had almost made it across the rubble field. My turn would likely be faster and easier since there were more intact pieces of concrete on this side, but a different problem was looming. As I pushed myself forward and into the debris, the last rays of sunshine started to recede, leaving me scrambling at the very edge of darkness. I only realized just what a difference that made when, almost immediately, the shamblers all over the building surged forward—and after me.
Throwing caution to the wind, I did my very best to gain speed—and keep my backsliding to a minimum. I gave up checking behind me after a few moments when I realized that I lost momentum, and if they caught up to me, I’d be dead whether I saw it coming or not.
I was halfway across the gap when the sunshine disappeared.
The howling and growling behind me increased in pitch and volume almost immediately. I tried to tell myself—quite rationally—that I was just imagining things, but it must have been more since I felt an almost visceral shudder run through me as the baser parts of my brain responded. Exhaustion was still weighing my limbs down but I managed to increase my speed further, jump farther, and get to the finishing stretch quicker.
There was only one problem: on this side, the crane had pretty much buried the ground level completely, and there was a huge gap between the highest part of the debris and the next level up. I’d never hated my lack of physical height, paired with my other limitations, that much in my life.
For a second, I considered diving into the darkness beyond that gap and hope I didn’t spear myself on a rebar. Maybe there was a way out on the other side, and it might make for a good place to hole up. Yet ending up wedged in the opening, ready to be plucked up by the shamblers, didn’t sound like so much fun, and neither was the idea of fitting through with several of them following me. No, the only way was up, even if it looked borderline impossible. I still had around fifty feet of distance to traverse to come up with a plan.
Just my luck that Hamilton turned out to be my best bet for survival.
Movement in the shadows beyond the ledge that I had to reach drew my focus. Two hulking figures materialized into people—one of them Burns, the other Hamilton. I had no attention left to check whether he was sneering down at me, but I would have been more surprised if that hadn’t been the case. Thirty feet, and I realized that I only had one chance, and couldn’t be picky or demanding. I was sure that Hamilton hadn’t volunteered for the job but they must not have had anyone else to spare for it. Part of me still hoped that Richards would show up next to him, but this once my knight in shining armor left me hanging—hopefully not literally, I prayed… and jumped.
The last three steps I got lucky and had good, stable footing, so I could launch myself forward and upward at maximum momentum, pushing myself off the concrete with as much power as possible. I knew from the moment I left the ground that it wouldn’t be enough to reach the ledge and pull myself up, but both men were crouching down, ready to reach for me. My arms were already halfway up and I strained my body to reach higher and further, fighting for every fraction of an inch—
And slammed into the ledge, torso first, the impact hard enough to leave me disoriented and scrambling.
Strong, sure hands grabbed my arms and pack, hauling me up against inertia and gravity’s pull. My stomach revolted, and then I felt as if I was airborne again when their combined effort to heave me onto the ledge proved stronger than necessary for my weight. Still half locked in their grasp, I had no way to evade or cushion my fall, but Hamilton’s body did a great job providing a buffer between me and the concrete.
Neither of us looked very happy with the result, I might add.
He let go of me the same moment as I pushed up and Burns gave my pack another hard pull, ending with me pretty much flying off Hamilton’s prone form. Staggering against Burns was a much better outcome, even if it might have earned me a nasty glare from Sonia. I couldn’t tell as I was much more preoccupied with getting away from the ledge and the surge of undead below than to see if she was even around, let alone her reaction. A moment of elation was all I got; then Burns gave me a shove toward the back of the room, just a few more feet away. The crane had taken out the ramp, but the staircase looked intact enough where Cole was keeping the door open. Below, Richards was playing lookout, and as soon as he saw me stagger down the rubble-strewn steps, he took off running down the street at breakneck speed. Why became apparent the moment I staggered out of the staircase, and found masses of shamblers waiting for us. For every stupid one that was still trying to brave the debris, five smart ones had simply followed the streets running alongside the block made up by the building.
I didn’t think. I didn’t question how intelligent it was to try to run away from them, or where we were headed. There was an alive human being running in front of me, so that’s who I followed. The three men caught up to me, but seeing Hamilton push past me gave me an extra smidgen of energy, helping me not to fall behind more than a step or two. Ahead, Red careened through an intersection without checking and took a hard turn right, Hamilton following in his steps. Not bothering with good form, I stumbled onto the sidewalk and through the remnants of what used to be a FEMA roadblock, this cutting a good three feet of distance from my route. The road ahead was empty but I saw shamblers trickle onto it four or five blocks away. Richards did another turn, back in our initial direction—south. One block, two, and then more shamblers came running and screaming toward us, an entire wave of them from how they suddenly filled out the street. Yet Richards pushed on, running right toward them, missing the last possible route away from them as he ran straight across another intersection. My instincts were screaming for me to take the turn he’d missed but I forced myself to follow and only concentrate on catching up to him.
With half of block of distance to the shamblers left, Richards suddenly hurled himself onto the sidewalk and through a small portal barely broader than a normal house entrance. In the deepening shadows, it looked more like a dark maw into hell, but turned out to be a short staircase, less than ten steps deep. Beyond that was a ramp just about broad enough for a car, although obviously meant for pedestrian traffic only. One of the entrances to the Dallas pedestrian underground tunnels, I realized—not quite what we were headed for, but the next best thing, and better than getting torn to shreds by the undead.
My shorter legs cost me a few feet of distance down the stairs so Hamilton managed to catch up to Richards in the meantime, with the three of us following. Not a bad turn, I realized, when Richards hesitated at the first intersection yet Hamilton barreled right on, heading straight, then left, and straight again, as if he had a map of the pedestrian tunnels memorized. That was likely what was happening, I realized, as I followed him blindly, not looking at any of the side tunnels that we didn’t take.
On and on we ran—and we were far from alone in the tunnels; more than once, a huddle of shamblers lurched toward us, but they clearly didn’t belong to the hunting mob we had encountered on the surface, too slow to be much of a menace to us. We must have run well over a mile when Hamilton picked another ramp upward, leading us back to the surface. I had just enough time to feel my animal brain react to the stench my nose must have picked up before my mind noticed it; then we were crashing into a crowd of shamblers, out onto another street clogged with wrecks. I almost went down but a strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, and down the street we went with the confused undead coming after us. My vision was swimming with patches of color as hypoxia set in, my lungs
incapable of drawing enough air. I knew I had maybe a minute of this in me, two tops—
But it turned out, all I needed was another fifteen seconds before Hamilton launched himself into what looked like an ordinary entrance to a building’s underground parking lot. With mounting panic I realized that it was a dead end—until a sudden shock of bright light revealed an exit where there shouldn’t be one, at the very back left corner of the level. Nate and Blake were waiting for us there, urging us on with silent gestures. Needing no incentive, I staggered through the gap in the concrete, slipping through easily while Burns had to actively squeeze himself through. As soon as Cole was the last to get in, Nate and Blake pulled what looked like a rusty sheet of iron across the gap, effectively sealing it shut. A locking mechanism engaged, and not a second too soon as the repeat sound of bodies slamming against the other side of the barrier proved. It didn’t budge or give—or even shake, really—way sturdier than it looked.
Hunching over, I did my best not to fall flat on my face as I sucked air into my lungs, feeling like my entire body had just gotten worked over by a sledgehammer. The guys didn’t look to be in much better shape, although Hamilton was trying to hide it. I honestly didn’t give a fuck, as long as I was safe from the undead for the moment. Beyond what little illumination Blake’s flashlight provided, I could see the other surviving members of our team huddled together, equally happy to be alive. My earlier guess had been correct, it turned out—only Eden and Amos were left of the scavengers, the other two members of their party gone. Considering what the last two days had been like, it was bordering on a miracle that any of us had survived, but I couldn’t help but feel that special kind of frustration rise inside of me that I’d gotten awfully familiar with over the past few years: that senseless loss of life when really, we couldn’t afford to lose anyone. I tried to console myself that it wasn’t any of my friends—and least of all Nate—but couldn’t ignore the bitter taste it left on my tongue.
“We move out in five,” my dear husband grated out, the first loud words any of us had uttered in what felt like ages.
I glared at him between pants that made me sound more canine than human, but didn’t protest. We’d made it to the abandoned railway tunnels. Our destination was less than two miles of hopefully mostly straight paths away. That was enough time to catch my breath. And, soon enough, we’d find out whether we had risked our lives for something worth risking it for, or all the senseless deaths had been for naught.
Chapter 13
We did not move out in five, as it turned out. That order had come before Nate had gotten a chance to realize how badly wounded Fletcher had gotten, and that Scott’s two remaining marines were both pretty beaten up and needed some rudimentary checkups and bandages. Sonia could easily take care of that, but even before she hesitated with Fletcher, Nate told her to steer clear of him. I would have preferred to sit this one out—literally, since my lungs and legs were still protesting after the recent abuse they had suffered—but all the tall, hulking guys seemed to think that cleaning savage bite wounds warranted a woman’s gentle touch.
I was still wheezing with laughter as I pulled off my gloves after rudimentarily wiping gore off my arms, and set to work. And my, having my mutilated fingers right in front of his face—the unmistakable price I had paid for getting infected and having the audacity to survive—seemed to upset Fletcher’s stomach greatly. Or that was just the onset of the virus-caused flu symptoms. I tried to remember how long it had taken for my body to start deteriorating, and realized that Fletcher was a tantalizingly close match. I didn’t tell him that as I first got rid of all manner of gore and dried blood before checking the wounds themselves. The shamblers had gotten him good, but not to the point where they’d managed to tear out chunks of flesh. Around the bite marks, the skin was swollen and red, and he definitely needed stitches where it was damaged enough to start bleeding as soon as I was done with cleanup. I was happy not to have to deal with that when Blake whipped out a small pouch and extracted a plastic syringe, handing it to me.
“You still have reserves of the glue?” Last I remembered—which had been around the time I had gotten infected, actually—the Silo scientists had been working on upgraded versions of the booster shots and the glue, a wound coagulant that could knit together tissues well enough on the surface, and was great for deeper wounds yet needed removal later as the surrounding flesh could turn necrotic. One of my fondest memories of that still remained when, right at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, Nate had managed to get speared by a rebar and Martinez had sealed up the wound with that shit, only to tell me two days later that I was the only one qualified to cut it right out of him again. Thankfully, the assholes hadn’t shared with me that Nate was fully conscious during that makeshift operation, or could have torn my head clean off had he died under my scalpel and converted. Fun times.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me something along the lines of it not being as bad as it looks?” Fletcher asked, his voice scratchy.
I paused, taking a moment to catch his gaze. “Like, ‘just a flesh wound,’ you mean?” He nodded, even managed a slight smile. “Yeah, the problem is, you are right now the poster boy for newly infected with the zombie virus, and while I can very competently give you a timeline of what’s up next for you, I’m not sure that will help.”
I didn’t miss the dejected look on his face even as I worked on spreading a thin layer of the glue across the deepest cuts. While I couldn’t use the rest in the syringe on half of our team, there was no sense in wasting it, so I wiped the top with a tissue doused with alcohol, closed it up, and let it disappear into my pack.
“How long do I have, doc?” he asked. I wondered if I should clarify that he wasn’t that far off from my qualifications with that moniker.
“To live? Probably another thirty hours, maybe even going on fifty. But you won’t be lucid or able to fight in five, six tops. Unless we are super fast with the cleanup of the lab, you’ll get to guard the back door that we’ll use to get inside, and that’s it.” He didn’t look too disturbed about the news. I couldn’t hold it against him. He was quickly succumbing to what felt like real influenza on speed; that wasn’t exactly a great condition to go all-out Rambo on anyone’s ass.
“Guess that’s it, then,” he muttered, wincing as I finished slapping a bandage on my work.
I hesitated for a moment, but then went for it. “You know, there’s a good chance they’ll have some serum samples in that lab. Maybe the original, or the upgrade, but even if it’s just the variant that the scavengers got—it’s a lease on life that adds months, if not years to your existence. More than enough time to finish this mission, and get to cash in on all the favors anyone still owes you.” Saying “to bring all your affairs in order” sounded too much like a death sentence—even if it was just that.
Fletcher shook his head, the way he regarded me turning almost shrewd. “No, thanks. I saw the horror plain on your face when Hamilton broke it to you that you’re already more than halfway into zombie territory. I hate knowing that next week I won’t be around anymore, but then none of us could have seriously expected to survive this mission. I’ll go on my terms, when my time is up—and without becoming an issue to my people.” I must still have been bad about reining in my features as he cracked a small, if pained, smile. “What, you really think that our scientists couldn’t have reverse-engineered that serum shit if they’d wanted? When Hamilton dropped by that summer when you and your buddies went all ape-shit on his ass, the army even offered our squints stocks and the entire documentation. They declined, but I know they’ve been in contact with the USAMRIID R&D branch ever since. If you ask me, they knew they were dodging a bullet, not saying no to an opportunity of a lifetime. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?”
I didn’t, but it wasn’t that much of a surprise, particularly since, far as I knew, Petty Officer Stanton had remained with Emily Raynor in the Canadian base, both because she probably continued to need medical att
ention that no other place on earth could give her, and to act as a liaison. We’d seen ourselves that Wilkes, the Silo’s commander, was more than happy to cut deals with everyone if his people might profit, and he could keep them free and alive in their little facility. My bitterness only stemmed from the fact that I personally was banned—or had been; considering that Blake, who’d had to serve as my personal watchdog on my last visit, was now working with us, maybe Wilkes had changed his mind. Then again, the list of places where I wasn’t allowed to enter was probably longer than that of where I was welcome, so it wasn’t like Wilkes was singling me out that much. Wilkes had more reason than most of the others, even though it hadn’t been my fault that his scientists had been stupid enough not to make sure that asshole guy I’d infected was dead for good. Complicated shit, and simply banning me was the easiest solution.
Fletcher looked annoyed when I gave him a wry grin. “No, I wasn’t aware of that, but since I’ve likely met all people involved, I’m far from surprised.” When he kept staring at me weirdly, I couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I hate to break it to you, but where the safety of people—and a possible cure for the fucking zombie virus—is concerned, I try very hard to keep my personal quarrels and ethics out of the game. I didn’t exactly volunteer when Hamilton dragged me across the globe and almost got my husband killed in Paris, but I still spent the entire way back going over the notes we found there and doing my best to contribute my expertise to their cause. And that’s also the reason why I’m here now. I, personally, have long since given up on getting vengeance, or satisfaction for anything anyone has done. All there is for me in this game is to hope we can prevent worse from happening, and to stop the shit that’s already in motion. So, good for you if you look forward to blowing your brains out later tonight when you realize you’ll soon be too frail to do it yourself if you wait much longer than that. If you need help, I’m happy to lend you my shotgun.”
Retribution: Green Fields #11 Page 21