by Amber Wyatt
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But she asked me to, she told me to do it if she ever got bitten herself, I’m… back at the farm she said…” she was babbling, and she knew it but could not help herself. Hugh stopped her with a gentle touch.
“I know, Gina,” his eyes were sad. “I know. One of us had to do it, and…” his voice cracked a little. “And thank God it was you, and not me. Thank you.”
She looked at him unbelieving, then he opened his arms and after a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into his hug. Tears came for both of them then, and she sobbed silently against his chest and squeezed him so hard that it hurt. They stood that way for a moment of shared grief, until the Hispanic girl tapped Gina on the shoulder impatiently.
“So, um, excuse me, I hate to break up whatever the fuck is going on with you two. But you know, those soldiers are still coming, and we’re trapped. All of us.”
“It’s okay,” sniffed Gina, pushing away from Hugh and wiping her eyes. She looked back up at the hole in the ceiling above them. This would be an ideal spot for an ambush. “I have an idea.”
Down in the basement below them, Vockler struggled to keep his face composed, but inside he was boiling with fury. He had found the bodies of Lima Three in the central lobby, stripped of weapons and equipment, as well as the corpse of one of his civilian targets in the infection observation chamber. So now they are armed, he thought to himself. And Lima One has just gone radio silent, so I guess their ambush against the National Guard didn’t go well. Looks as if I am on my own.
Vockler looked around the atrium and shook his head, expelling his anger with a sharp breath. It was a shame that they had to abandon this facility. The staff and resources had been some of the best in the world, but he knew that the loss of the IDRC would only be a momentary setback for the project. Vockler had worked for General White for many years now, and he knew that the old man had airtight backup plans and virtually limitless resources available with which to execute them. If the general said that he had possession of all of the research data, it would only be a few months at most before he had another facility like this one up and running.
Anyway, I’ll leave the project continuity planning in the general’s capable hands. For the moment I still have one job to do before I get the hell out of here. Track down and kill those civilian prisoners. With all of his teams either dead or out of contact, and the Lazarus team room ‘sanitized’, the only resources available to Vockler were what he currently had with him on his immediate person. After one last, thoughtful glance around the atrium, he looked back down at his combat tablet, and started to focus on where the escaped prisoners might be trying to head to.
At the National Guard rear cordon position, behind the loading bay of the IDRC, the troops on security stiffened up as one of their squads emerged from the large double doors, pushing a body on a medical trolley. The machine-gunners on the top of the Humvees stayed alert, ready for any attempted infected breakout, but were relaxed and curious as they watched the squad trudge towards them.
“Hey what’s up? Alpha, is that you coming out, over?” the sergeant next to one of the Humvees said into his radio. The lead figure waved at him and shook his head emphatically.
“Alpha here, negative, we are still inside, heading down to the basement, over.” The answer crackled back over his handset.
“Hmm. Must be from Bravo, but why aren’t they on their comms?” The sergeant said to his driver. He walked forward a few steps as the squad approached his vehicle. “Hey why aren’t you guys on your comms?” he called out.
“Yeah, we’re Bravo,” the lead soldier, a corporal, replied, holding up his radio as he approached. “This radio’s fucked. I can receive you but I can’t transmit.” Even muffled through the gas mask, the tone of disgust came through loud and clear. “These comms are shit, and once we get inside the building, they’re even worse.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” the sergeant laughed. “How’s it going in there? Hey, is that guy a casualty?” he pointed at the guardsman on the trolley.
Underneath the gas mask, Dwayne, acting as the squad leader, felt like a river of sweat was running down his face. The ambush that Gina had organized, although improvised quickly, had at least had the refreshing advantage of being simple. Dropping on top of the National Guard squad and overpowering them had been surprisingly easy. Taking their uniforms and trying to impersonate them on the way out. This is where it gets hairy.
Dwayne knew that their cover could be blown at any moment, and with every second that passed, that eventuality became more and more likely. He could not believe that their ruse was still working. All them were clutching their weapons so tightly, he was sure it looked suspicious. And although he, Hugh and Rob filled out their uniforms, Gina was tiny. Even with a gas mask on, she looked like a child, swamped by the uniform and helmet.
“It’s hot as hell in there, wearing all this shit.” Dwayne turned around and waved at the trolley. “Yeah, the ceiling fell down on Shaw, and Chavez twisted his ankle or something.” Looking back directly at Arlene, he winked twice. She winked back through her gas mask, and discreetly pressed the send button on her phone.
She had called Michaels and briefed him on their plan and, just as eager as them to get out of there, he had agreed to help. In the cab of the garbage truck the message which Michaels had been waiting for buzzed through on his phone. It just said one word. Now.
He switched the engine on, revved it loudly, and rammed the gear stick into reverse.
“Look at that!” Dwayne yelled, pointing at the big garbage truck with ‘BROWARD COUNTY RECYCLING’ painted on its side. The big vehicle roared into life and its reverse warning signal had barely got off one loud beep before it raced backwards straight towards a Humvee. The gunner was so shocked he just did not even think about shooting. After all, the big truck had just been sat in front of him for the last hour, as part of the background scenery.
The truck hit the much smaller Humvee and smashed it backwards without even slowing down, catapulting the gunner out of his hatch and several yards to the side, where he landed with a sickening crunch and did not move again. Then there was pandemonium as the rest of the troops on the cordon all started shooting at the big, industrial vehicle, and it careened backwards through the parking lot, knocking car after car to the side, bullets sparking harmlessly off its thick steel hide.
Nobody was watching as the squad of soldiers at the back, turned and slipped away, and then started running, pushing a trolley in front of them, around the corner of the building to the other staff car park.
Holy shit, I cannot believe that worked! Gina’s heart was pounding with adrenalin. She and Arlene sprinted towards the row of official looking SUVs parked up in the shade around the side. Behind them, Hugh was sitting on the rattling trolley on top of Wilkins’s legs, and Dwayne and Rob were pushing it as fast as they could. The chest, still in its plastic sheeting, bounced and vibrated on its shelf underneath the trolley bed.
“This one,” Gina panted, coming to a stop next to the closest vehicle. “Dwayne, can you hotwire it?”
“What? Are you freaking serious, girl?” he looked at her with his head cocked to one side. “Are you genuinely asking me if I can hotwire a car because I’m black?”
“What?” She looked back at him with an equally puzzled look, her brow furrowed with consternation. “No, I’m asking if you can hotwire a car because you’re a fucking convict.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he mumbled back after a pause. “Seems fair enough.”
“So, can you?”
“Well… yes.”
They both turned around as the big engine of the SUV started up behind them, purring healthily. Rob and Hugh were already quickly loading Wilkins’s unconscious body into the back. Arlene was in the driving seat. She rolled down the window and gave both Gina and Dwayne a withering look.
“Keys were in it,” she said laconically. “Can you two put a lid on it, and can we kindly get the fuck out o
f here?”
“Yeah,” Gina looked down at the wristwatch on Dwayne’s wrist, and glanced up meeting his eyes. “Let’s get out of here. We need to get to the docks.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Primus
The old woman could not remember who she had been before she had been infected. If she could, she would have remembered running from the fat businessman in the corner store who had bitten her. She would have remembered the burning in her blood, and breaking into the ice cream salon with the thought that maybe ice cream would help cool her down, and that during the ensuing fighting and screaming she had ended up trapped under the heavy, industrial freezer. She did have some memories of that time, after she had transformed, of lying there trapped for what seemed an eternity, not alive but unable to die, craving the occasional taste of a victim that ventured too close, until Qureshi and his friends had tried to bind her and take her away from that place. But if she were to think of them, which she never did, even those memories were faint and were fading away. All that existed for her now was the tunnel, the prey and the hunt.
The chase had lasted over an hour, but in the lightless night of the storm drains, time seemed to make no difference. Her pursuit through the ink-black, subterranean highway from the federal prison all the way to the docks could have lasted ten minutes or it could have lasted ten hours. The old woman had no way of knowing. Time meant nothing to her any more. The only thing that mattered was her hunger and the delicious prey in front of her.
She was what the old ones would have called a Tertius. Fast and savage, but not entirely mindless. It was she that the prey called Qureshi had kept prisoner for so long, teasing her infrequently with only tiny, tantalizing tastes, before taking them away again. It was she who had finally found freedom in the prison, filled with hundreds of glorious live humans for her to hunt down. And it was she who had followed the last three survivors underground into the storm drains, as they tried to sneak away like rats, in a futile attempt to escape her hunger.
But she was not stupid. These three had guns. And so she had gathered her drones, called them to her, and sent them forward down the tunnel again and again. The prey had been handicapped, unable to see in the dark as she could. They shone their flashlights, and fired their bullets blindly into the blackness, killing her hordes over and over. Until there were no more bullets for them to shoot, and no more drones for her to send. Now it was just her, and them. They had thrown their useless guns behind them and run. And she had run after them, filled with the terrible hunger that could never be satisfied, driven onward almost senseless with craving for the energy she could practically taste in their pounding chests and gasping lungs.
The three prey had emerged from the tunnel entrance, sprinted up the side ramp and quickly barricaded themselves into the first storage shed they could find. She had hit the door a heartbeat later, like a battering ram, and then swarmed all over the wooden structure looking for a way in. She had looked in vain. The shed had been built to endure the devastating hurricanes which regularly plagued the Florida coast, and the door and window shutters easily withstood even her inhuman strength.
So, she had climbed up sat on the roof to wait, in a place where she could look down and see all the sides to the building. She was not stupid. She was not a drone who would soon forget that prey was hiding nearby. She knew that the three of them were just beneath her, and she would wait, sleepless and alert, until they tried to escape.
And then after some time, again she could not say whether it was a few hours or a few days, the black car had come and parked close to the water’s edge, not far from her shed. Flattened out, her filthy skin blending into the grey, wooden roof, she watched the new prey get out of the car. Her eyes were sharp, and she could see the guns that these humans carried. So she lay there patiently, not breathing, just watching, waiting for them to drop their guard. But there were so many of them, and their life-force pulled at her on a deep, instinctive level. She snarled as caution warred with an almost overpowering desire to leap down and tear into their flesh with her teeth.
Gina stepped out of the SUV and looked around the dockyard uneasily. She could not shake the feeling that somehow, they were being watched. But Arlene had sworn blind that this part of the docks was empty. In fact, most of Fort Lauderdale’s ports and docks had been totally abandoned for years, since the quarantine forbade any watercraft from even leaving the shore. The prettier, more scenic boardwalks and marinas down south near the convention center had been repurposed into high end dining and nightlife venues. This was not one of the pretty areas.
Dwayne came and stood next to her, surveying the empty, grey piers and barnacle encrusted pilings. Once the boats and people had abandoned the docks, even the seagulls had left too, and the entire area was completely devoid of life. The only sound was the faint lapping of the water, and even that seemed to be muffled.
“Well, looks like she was right,” Dwayne said. “This place is deserted.”
“I don’t like it,” Gina scowled at the ghostly buildings surrounding them, with their faded, sun-bleached signboards. “It feels too exposed.” She fingered her weapon, checking the safety catch with her thumb.
“Come on,” Rob said from the back seat of the SUV. “Wilkins is stable but he needs a hospital. Let’s get a move on.”
With the exception of Wilkins passed out in the back seat, the group gathered around as Dwayne carefully took the chest out of the back of the SUV. During the short drive to the coast, they had already discussed what they were going to do when they got to the docks. Four of them, Gina, Dwayne, Rob and Wilkins would use Thomas’s watch to signal Behnke’s extraction team and leave the zone, taking the chest with them to dispose of at an appropriate time. Hugh and Arlene both wanted to stay in the zone. Arlene in particular had been horrified at the thought of leaving Fort Lauderdale.
“Are you kidding me?” Her eyebrows had climbed up to her hairline. “There’s no way I’m leaving. You see all them bodies laying around the IDRC just now? Tomorrow me and Michaels are gonna go back and collect them all. I mean I don’t know where we gonna take them, he’s the boss, but that’s another hundred grand just laying around to be picked up. Shit, at the end of this week, I could retire!”
Hugh had just quietly announced that he would see them off, but then after that he simply wanted to go home. Nobody had mentioned Hana on the drive up, and seeing the broken look on Hugh’s face, it was unlikely that anyone was going to, either. Dwayne clasped his hand firmly and dragged Hugh into a hug. Hugh looked up, and for a second his old, familiar smile lit up his gaunt face.
“If you ever want to come out to Hawaii, brother,” Dwayne said. “All you got to do is give me a…” then he was cut off by a familiar voice coming from behind the group.
“Hands up! All of you. Hands up and nobody move a muscle.”
They all turned around in shock to see Vockler standing there, his rifle aimed at them. With its high rate of fire, he could empty the magazine into them in a single burst, killing or seriously injuring all of them in an instant. And in the hands of an expert operator like Vockler, it was foregone conclusion that they would all be killed.
“How the hell?” Gina asked, stupefied. “Nobody followed us. How could you have possibly known where we were going?”
“But I did follow you,” Vockler did not smile. “You’re still wearing the chest rigs that you took off the bodies of my men. Every one of them has a GPS tracker. I just followed you on my tablet.” He brandished his assault rifle and pointed to one side. “Now step away from the chest, and go stand up against that wall.”
Nobody moved.
“Um, there’s somebody behind you,” Dwayne said, keeping his hands up, but pointing with one finger.
“Cute,” sneered Vockler, “but…”
The old woman hit him from behind like a Rottweiler fired from a cannon. Vockler fired off a burst as he went down, but the bullets all went high, missing the group and smashing through the woo
den walls of the boathouse behind them. The Lazarus officer thrashed around desperately underneath her, but it was already too late. He could feel her teeth raking huge rents through his scalp. His eyes bulged as her clawed hands crushed his throat, and she chomped down on the top of his head so hard that half of her teeth broke off against his skull.
The instant Vockler went down, the group dropped their hands, grabbed their own weapons and opened fire. For three deafening seconds a hail of bullets shredded both Vockler and the zombie attacking him, ripping huge divots of flesh from their bones and spraying red blood across the grey, bleached decking of the boardwalk. Then there was silence, and they all relaxed slightly. Vockler and the zombie lay tangled up together in an obscene, bloody parody of lovemaking.
Gina walked forward, and methodically aimed and fired a bullet into each of their heads, making Dwayne flinch. She looked back at him, raising one eyebrow questioningly.
“I don’t want any more surprises,” she explained calmly.
Then the door of the shed creaked open behind her and they all scrabbled to raise their weapons into firing positions again.
“Don’t shoot,” a voice came from the shed. “We’re human, don’t shoot!”
“Come out nice and slow, with your hands high,” Dwayne yelled back. Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as the last three survivors from the prison massacre cautiously came out into the fading sunlight. “Cutter, is that you? And the warden? How did you guys make it out?” He lowered his weapon and quickly gestured to the others to do the same. “It’s okay, they’re okay.”
“We came through the storm drains, ran the whole goddamn way here, with that bitch chasing us,” Finkelstein jerked a thumb at the dead zombie on top of Vockler.
“You came through the drain?” Gina was confused.