by Amber Wyatt
“How did you know about that…?” Taylor stammered, “I mean, I haven’t done anything! It wasn’t me. I’m trying to reset the system and lock the doors again.” He pouted indignantly and was about to say something else when Vockler kicked him savagely in the stomach and left him retching and gasping for breath.
The tall, blond officer went back to the screen and flicked through various cameras from around the IDRC. Coming back past some of the infected holding pens, he and his men had been swarmed by zombies coming out of a side corridor. Vockler had been the sole survivor. The only reason that he was alive was that by sheer chance he had still been holding his pistol in his hand after shooting Shepard. The others had not even had time to draw their weapons. He had shot all the infected as they pulled down his accompanying soldiers, and then had to shoot his own men as they rose from the floor, teeth bared, lurching towards him. It was their blood all over him, and Vockler was in a foul mood.
On the screens in front of him he could see the other Lazarus troops moving in good order through the administration offices, firing their weapons as they advanced, covering each other from every angle. They moved quickly and efficiently, without taking any risks, and they left the hallways behind them carpeted with sprawled corpses. Vockler frowned as he saw a few black-uniformed Lazarus troops scattered amongst the dead bodies.
“Lima One,” Vockler keyed his radio. “Rendezvous with me in the ops room. We will continue clearing the IDRC of all the infected, starting from the top floor and moving downwards. Lima Two secure our accommodation and remain there in reserve until I call you forward.” He studied the cameras showing the laboratory sections. “Lima Three move down to the basement and recapture the civilians who have escaped from their cells.” Vockler thought for a moment, then picked up his radio again. “Scratch that last order. Lima Three, you are to hunt those civilians down and shoot them on sight.”
All three team leaders acknowledged and Vockler turned to look at the gasping scientist on the floor. “Speaking of cells, let’s find one for you, you fat sack of shit, before you do any more damage.”
Down in the laboratory level Hana was crouched behind a long workbench with Gina and Thomas. Somewhere on the other side of the hallway Hugh and the others were hiding in one of the offices. The group had been split into two by the sudden appearance of a group of zombies chasing some technicians. Only Sammy’s acute hearing and urgent, whispered warning had given them the few seconds warning they had needed to scatter left and right before the panicked, panting researchers had rounded the corner followed closely by their snarling pursuers.
They were quickly overtaken, and the ensuing bloody slaughter had lasted only a few seconds. Now both the original zombies, and the newly infected, undead IDRC technicians were standing in the hallway without any reason to move on. Hana and her two companions were in a laboratory with waist-high windows on all sides, and were limited to crawling around behind the work-tops to avoid being seen by the zombies lurking just outside. She edged the camera on her phone over the edge of the table and grimaced at the screen. The infected were turning their heads slightly back and forth, as they tried to track the sounds of fighting elsewhere in the building, but the echoing gunfire was too distant and diffused to give them a concrete direction to start moving towards.
Through the doorway she saw the office door across the hallway silently open just a crack. Hugh peeked through at her and held up the pistol he had taken from Shepard’s body. She shook her head and pointed at her ear. He nodded in understanding. Shooting them would be too noisy and bring God knows how many other zombies from other parts of the lab. Hana looked down at the Farpunch daggers stuck in her belt. That will take care of two, but what about the rest?
She froze at a small scratching sound behind her and turned to see that Gina had crawled over to one of the windows on the other side of the lab and was tugging it open. When the gap was wide enough, the petite Korean singer stretched her hand through, and tossed a small glass bottle down the hallway.
Hana quickly looked at her phone screen, but although they stirred slightly, the zombies did not move, despite the sound of the bottle bouncing down the corridor. They don’t react to just any noise. It has to sound as if it comes from humans. Then as she looked at her phone an idea struck her. She quickly got out the extra phone she had taken from Shepard’s body. It took only a few seconds to turn the speaker on, then she slid it across the floor to Gina.
Drop the phone out the window, Hana gestured. I will call it.
Gina smiled in understanding, then frowned back at her and mimed back, using hand gestures. You… no… talk. Too loud! She looked back at Hana thoughtfully for a second before her eyes suddenly lit up with inspiration. She flashed Hana a mischievous smile and held up one finger. Wait. Gina bent her head and grinned as her fingers flickered rapidly across the keypad. Then she dropped the phone out of the window and wriggled like an eel surprisingly quickly back across the floor to Hana and Thomas.
“Get ready to move,” she hissed urgently.
Abruptly music blared out from the dropped phone and echoed down the hallway. It was Gina’s hit single, ‘Bubble Gum’, and despite the imminent lethal threat lurking only feet away, tears glistened in the pretty singer’s eyes as she clapped a hand over her mouth to suppress silent laughter. Her glee was infectious and Hana felt an answering smile on her own face as she looked back at her phone screen. The infected had taken the bait and moved towards the music, the hallway was clear.
Clutching a Farpunch dagger in each hand, Hana crawled quickly to the doorway and out into the hallway, closely followed by the other two. On the far side of the hall, a waiting Hugh opened the door to his office and the three of them scrambled in as quickly as they could.
He closed the door quietly behind them and there was a quick flurry of heartfelt, if silent, hugs of greeting. Hana was surprised to find how much she enjoyed being enfolded by Hugh’s strong arms, and let go of him only reluctantly. Gina was even more surprised to find herself tightly hugging the escaped convict, Dwayne. OMG he’s probably a murderer or a pimp or something. She released her grip immediately, only to find herself blushing as she looked up into his smiling eyes.
“My favorite song,” Dwayne winked, pointing at the door. The catchy chorus from Bubble Gum echoed clearly down the polished hallways of the labs outside. Then he broke eye contact just at the point that it was about to become awkward, and looked over at Thomas. “Hey Thomas,” he whispered, and handed the huge bodyguard two towels and a roll of duct tape. “Wrap up.” Dwayne held his own arms out as an example. Both he and Hugh already had makeshift armor in the form of towels rolled around their forearms, tightly wrapped in duct tape.
The very average office was depressingly lacking in weapons suitable for battling the undead. It took less than a minute to go through the cabinets and drawers, and to share out the meagre spoils of their search.
Hugh, Dwayne and Thomas, the three strongest men, each got towels to use as armguards. Hugh found a hammer, while Dwayne and Thomas armed themselves with a printer and a large computer monitor respectively. Hana found some black leather gloves in a desk belonging to a ‘Sandra’ who, if one were to believe her numerous cubicle decorations, had recently celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday with her four pet cats. There was nothing else of use in the office.
Hana told Hugh to hand Shepard’s pistol over to Gina.
“What? Hey wait a second…” blurted out Behnke, but Hana cut him off with a vicious look and a voice that although pitched quietly so as not to carry outside the room, was no less venomous for its lack of volume. I still haven’t forgotten that you wanted to abandon me in the hangar, motherfucker.
“No, be quiet! I’ve been watching all of you, and Gina is a better shot than anyone else in this group, including me. We are trapped in the basement of a huge building which is crawling with zombies. If you want the best chance of getting out of here alive, Gina gets the pistol. End of argument.”
Gina took the pistol from Hugh and quickly checked the chamber and magazine. She was glad of something to do. Ever since they had escaped from their cell, thoughts of her own mortality and of her dead daughter had been at the forefront of her mind. She was still recovering from the ordeal of seeing Bella’s corpse. The thought that she might soon be dead herself, killed before even making it out of the building, was overwhelming. And if I die, then who will seek revenge for my daughter? Gina looked over at Hana and wondered if she remembered her promise to help Gina in her quest for vengeance. One step at a time. We need to get out of here first.
“We need a map or something,” Gina took a deep breath and sighed, “we have no idea where we are in this building, or where we need to go to. This isn’t like Darwin’s Farm. I mean even there we knew we had to park around the side.” Then she paused frowning. “In fact, how did we know where to park? Had you guys been there before?”
“Hugh has been to the farm before,” Thomas said, absent-mindedly as he unplugged the cables from the printer, and hefted the heavy machine up and down thoughtfully. “That’s where he parked the first time that he went.”
“What do you mean ‘the first time’? Hugh? You’ve been to the farm before?” Gina looked over at Hugh in surprise. “You never mentioned that.” A cold look settled over her face and her eyes went hard. “So, Thomas. Hugh told you that he had been to the farm before our little trip there?”
Hana stopped breathing, seeing the tormented expression on Hugh’s face, a dreadful suspicion growing inside her. No, no, no, please don’t let it be what I am thinking.
“Yes,” Thomas continued, oblivious to the sudden tension he had created in the room. “Hugh was with the very first group of hunters who went to clear out the zombies from the farm.”
Hana was looking directly at Gina as Thomas spoke, so she saw the blood literally drain out of the younger woman’s face, leaving her with an expression as white and hard as ice. Then the gun snapped up, pointing at Hugh’s head. Before she knew it, Hana had stepped in between the two of them.
“Gina please don’t do this,” she begged.
“You knew! You betrayed me!” Gina shrieked through lips pinched white with fury. Her eyes were like black stones, burning with hate. The eyes of a killer.
“No!” Hana put her hands up, pleading. “I only found out just now, just like you.”
Hana felt Hugh try to push her to the side and resisted, so he simply stepped around her and stared down the barrel of the gun in Gina’s white-knuckled hands.
“I think I know why you are upset. And I think I know why you came to the zone and wanted to go to the farm.” Hugh spoke softly, as if he were trying to calm a nervous horse, but his face was twisted with grief. He remembered watching the father carrying the tiny body of his step-daughter out of the farmhouse, and now he was fairly sure that he knew who that little girl was to Gina. “And I swear to you, I never even got out of the truck. It was just an emergency call I got from a friend to help them out with an infected outbreak. I drove them there, I parked up, I stayed in that truck and I did not move from it the whole time. I promise.”
There was a long moment while the three of them held the frozen tableau. Shocked like everyone else in the room, Thomas looked on, unsure of what he had said wrong, but horrified, knowing that something he had said had triggered this incident.
“You never left the truck.” Gina croaked through a thick throat. The black eyes had tears in them now. “You never pulled a trigger, you never set foot in that farm. You swear it?”
“I swear it.” Hugh said solemnly.
“He can help you,” Hana whispered desperately. “Help us. To find the hunters. I said I would help you, and I meant it.”
‘He can help you’. Of course she would say that, she wants to save her boyfriend’s life. Gina thought to herself. But still, she isn’t wrong. He knows the others who were there. He could help track them down. She slowly became aware that she was aiming the pistol at him and lowered it, her hands trembling slightly with adrenalin. I can’t think straight. Is he to blame or not?
“Okay,” she replied, breathing deeply. “We will talk about this later. First things first. We need to get out of here. Did you have a plan?”
“The four of us will lead and if we have to, we will do the fighting.” Hana whispered, blinking away tears of her own and re-focusing on their predicament. She indicated herself, Hugh, Thomas and Dwayne. She looked at the younger woman. “Gina, you bring up the rear, covering us, but use that pistol only as the last resort. One gunshot and every zombie within earshot will be coming for us. But if you have to, remember to aim for the head, okay?”
“Got it,” Gina gave Hugh a hard look and forced herself to look away. Focus. One step at a time and deal with this later. The pain that she had been carrying for so long was hard to let go, and she was struggling not to make him the lodestone for all the hatred she felt for the group of hunters that had killed her daughter. Besides which, are any of us even going to make it out of here alive anyway?
“So, what do we do?” Wilkins asked worriedly. The elation he had felt back at the museum had long since dissolved into a state of near permanent terror. And his daydreams of returning to his grandfather as the family hero, all seemed to be a distant memory belonging to someone else.
Hana forced herself to look away from Gina and faced the remainder of the group. Rob with his camera, Behnke and Wilkins on one side of the room, and on the other side, Sammy and Friedman.
“You guys hang back in the middle and do your best to hold off any zombie that gets around the side, until one of us can come deal with it.”
Wilkins felt like throwing up. Sammy looked as if he felt the same. Friedman and Behnke just looked grim. Rob simply nodded, turned on his camera and checked it was running. Hana surmised that he was probably just focusing on a familiar task to keep himself from panicking.
“We go out that door,” said Hana, pointing at the door on the opposite side from the one they had entered. “Everyone ready?” The circle of faces nodded back at her. “Okay, be as quiet as you can.”
Hana gripped the door handle, and when Hugh, Dwayne and Thomas had silently lined up behind her, gently turned it and opened the door a fraction of an inch to peek out.
Without warning the door slammed open into her face, knocking her sprawling backwards on the floor with Hugh struggling underneath her. There was blood in her eyes and a thrashing heavy body on top of her which she was horrified to realize was a zombie. Her arm had come up reflexively into its throat, barely holding it away, and she could hear its dripping jaws snapping shut just in front of her face. Then there was shouting, Thomas was roaring and suddenly the weight was off her chest and her ears were blasted with gunshots. Hugh got her up on her feet and she was buffeted by bodies from all sides as she struggled to wipe the blood from her eyes.
“Come on we have to run!” Hugh screamed in her ear, lifting her bodily and thrusting her forward. Abruptly Hana could see, and ran forward with him, wiping more blood from her face. She realized that it was pouring out of her nose.
Ouch fuck. My nose! I think it’s broken. There were three bodies on the floor of the hallway, zombies with blood pouring out of their shattered skulls, and further down the hallway Thomas and Dwayne were viciously battering another one with their makeshift weapons. The printer in Thomas’s hands shattered into pieces with one mighty, last blow to the head, and the zombie dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. As they all ran forward past the body, more gunshots rang out behind them.
“There are more coming,” screamed Gina from the back of the group. “Run!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Escape
Two infected rounded the corner
only a few feet away from Gina and instantly charged towards her. Her mind flashed back to the advice about shooting zombies that Hana had given her back at the farm. She ignored the immediate terror threatening to overwhelm her, braced her feet, and took the time to ensure that she lined up her shots correctly. She calmly pulled the trigger once, then twice, and watched the rounds snap their heads backwards, spraying blood across the walls on both sides. The two bodies thumped to the ground as her empty cases tinkled down the hallway, and she remained there, arms locked out in a firing position as the echoes of the shots died away, waiting until she was sure there were no more following behind them. Then, heart pounding, she turned and ran like all the devils in hell were chasing after her.
Gina caught up with the group around the next corner. The hallway was littered with corpses and pools of blood, and her companions were hastily turning them over, searching them. Her stomach flip-flopped at the sight of all the bodies and the thick stench of blood. I am never going to get used to this. She clamped her jaw shut and swallowed hard.
“Nothing,” Thomas said in frustration. “No weapons on any of them.”
“They were zombies,” Gina said. “Look at them. All of them have been shot in the head. And zombies don’t use weapons. You won’t find anything we can use on these bodies.”
“This one has had his weapon and all his ammunition taken off him,” Hana said, looking through the pouches on the body of a black-uniformed soldier. Her face was still coated with clotting blood, but at least her nose had stopped bleeding. Then she looked up at the rest of the group as she realized what had happened. “Of course. These zombies were killed by soldiers. Those guys that brought us here. This one got turned, and his buddies had to shoot him and then they took the ammo off his body when they left.”
“We need to keep moving then,” Gina answered, and there was a mumble of agreement as everyone stood back up. “We haven’t just got zombies running loose in here, we’ve got those guys armed to the teeth and probably looking to stick us back in a cell.” How much ammo do I have left? Her usual Glock held seventeen rounds, but this pistol was unfamiliar to her. She popped the magazine out and looked at the indicator holes. Six bullets left. The front of the bullets looked different to the ones she was used to at her shooting range. Must be those hollow-points that I heard about. Guess that explains the spectacular splash when I shot them in the head.