Deadlocked 7 (22 page)

“Abe,” said Zack, eager to leave. “If I make it within a hundred yards of the town it’ll be a miracle.”

Abe looked out at the orange glow in the distance. “Yeah, you’re probably right. This’d be a good time to reconsider, old man. Are you really up for this? Is it worth it?”

“
I might not be ready for it, but I promise it’s worth it.”

“Here’s your gun,” said Abe as he picked up the rifle off the ground.

“Keep it,” said Zack. “I’m not going to take a good gun away from The Rollers. Besides, if I shoot that thing I’ll have a hundred Greys on my ass in no time. I’ll do my murdering the old fashioned way.” He flipped the fireman’s axe back and forth between his gloved hands.

“Good luck,” said Kayla while watching the woods for sign of movement. “Abe, we need
to get a move on. Help me tell the Rollers to mount up. We can get the caravan rolling full speed out to this rehab clinic.”

“Good luck
,” said Abe as he pat his friend’s shoulder before walking away.

“I hope to see you again, Zack,” said Kayla as she went with Abe.

“Tell Artie I love him.” Zack saluted them, and then started to jog back toward the burning town.

Two years after the apocalypse

Reagan has led Billy and Hero into the facility under Nederland.

Reagan led the way down the stairs to a large underground hallway. There were doors on either side, and he ducked into the alcove of one while motioning for Billy and Hero to do the same.

He could hear a voice from within the room pleading for help. It was the woman that they’d seen outside, and she was begging to be set free. Reagan set his ear to the cold, iron door and tried to hear more, but the woman just kept saying the same thing.

“Please, someone let me out of here. Someone help me find Katie. Please, someone just let me out. Can anyone hear me?”

Reagan pointed at the door that he was pressed against to let them know he wanted to clear the room. They moved into position on either side of him as he tested the knob.

He opened the door quietly, and then shined his light inside. The nondescript, concrete room only had a chair in the center of it. The woman was tied to it, and she looked away when the light shined in her eyes.

“Hello?” she asked as the three men moved into the room.

Reagan motioned for Hero to guard the door as he went to inspect the captured woman.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“We’re here to help,” said Billy.

“Oh thank God.” She started to cry. “Thank God. They have my daughter. They took her somewhere deeper in the facility. They said they were going to do tests on her.”

“We’ll help her,” said Billy, but Reagan stayed staring down at the woman. “Right, Reagan?”

“We’re going to leave you here,” said Reagan.

“No, please,” said the woman. “You can’t. You don’t know what sort of things these people are doing! You can’t leave me.”

“We’ll come back for you,” said Reagan. “But give us time to get inside and see what’s going on.”

“I can help,” said the woman. “Please, let me help. Or at least help me find my daughter, and then I’ll leave. Please don’t leave me here.”

“We can at least cut her loose,” said Billy.

Reagan considered it, and then relented. “Okay, sure. We’ll cut you loose, but you’re staying in here until we come back to get you. Got it?”

She nodded. “Sure. Anything you say.”

“What’s your name?” asked Billy.

“Rebecca,” said the woman.

“I’m Billy, that’s Hero, and the nasty old man is Reagan.”

“Thank you for this,” said Rebecca. “Really, I can’t thank you enough. If you can help me get Katie back, I swear I’ll do anything you want.”

“We’ll do what we can,” said Reagan. “Can you tell us anything about this place?”

“Yes,” said Rebecca. “There’s a bunch of rooms like this one, but about fifty feet or so down the hall there’s a blue door. That’s where the testing room is at. That’s where they’ll have Katie.”

“Have you been here before?” asked Reagan.

“Yes,” said Rebecca, quick with the answer. “They keep us in cells not far from here, near the command post.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Reagan.

“A few months,” said Rebecca.

She rubbed her wrists after Reagan cut the bindings that held her to the chair. Then she hugged the old captain first, and then Billy. Hero stayed in the doorway and smile as he waved at her.

“Sit down and act like you’re still tied up,” said Reagan. “We’ll be back.” He was curt, all business as he moved to head into the hall again.

“Let’s get this kid and get out of here,” said Reagan. “I don’t trust anything about this place.” He walked across the hall to check the nearest door and found it locked. They moved a good distance down the hall and he checked several other doors discovering they were locked as well.

Reagan
stopped and looked at Billy and Hero. “You two go back and get the girl. Take her outside and wait for me.”

“What?” asked Billy. “Why?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this place. Something’s not right,” said Reagan.

“Those two soldiers we saw have to be down here still,” said Billy. “I don’t want to leave you here alone with them still wandering around. Let’s just get the kid and get out of here.”

“I think we walked into a trap,” said Reagan. “I think that letter with Covington’s name on it was planted there.”

“For real?” asked Hero.

Reagan nodded. “Yeah. Something Covington told me has bugged me since the last time I saw him. He said that my body had become immune to the disease, and that my blood was the key to them creating some sort of cure. I wonder if they’ve been trying to track me down for years already. They saw my face on video back in that base in Estes. They might’ve set this up to trap me.”

“You sure?” asked Billy. “That’s an awful lot of trouble to go to just to capture a cranky old bastard like you.”

“I had a bad feeling about that woman back there. Her wrists weren’t cut up. If her kid was really being held down here for tests, she’d rip her wrists to shreds to get out of that chair.”

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” said Hero.

“You two get out,” said Reagan. “There’s no way that kid was in on this. Remember how they pulled her out of that truck? She was screaming bloody murder. I want to get her out of here.”

“Then I’m going with you,” said Billy.

“Me too,” said Hero.

“No,” said Reagan. “That’s an order.”

Billy smiled and stuck his elbow into Hero’s side. “Listen to the old guy. He still thinks he’s in the Army.”

“Sorry, Chuckles,” said Hero. “We’re not good at taking orders.”

Reagan grimaced and shook his head. “You two are a pain in the ass. Have I ever told you that?”

“A few times,” said Hero. “Now let’s get this kid and get out of here.”

“Wait,” said Reagan. “If I’m right, and this is a trap, then we haven’t sprung it yet. They’re waiting for something.”

“Maybe for us to go in the room with the kid in it?” asked Billy.

“All the rest of the doors are locked,” said Hero. “Do you think there’re soldiers on the other side, waiting for us to go into the room with the blue door?”

“Could be,” said Reagan.

“
Why don’t we head back and have a chat with Rebecca?”  asked Billy.

Reagan nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

They walked back down the hall, careful to step quietly past the closed iron doors. Reagan was reminded of the time he took his son, Jim, to an event at Turner stadium. The Braves were honoring local military men and women, and Reagan brought his adopted son along for a tour of the field. The tour host was excited to show them the box seats, and bragged about how much it cost to rent the room for just a single game. But Reagan felt at home in the corridors below, where the workers toiled within concrete halls built with no care for comfort. This area felt similar, wide and unadorned with even a single stroke of paint. This time, however, Reagan felt anything but content.

They got to Rebecca’s room, and Reagan wasn’t surprised to find her gone. The ties that had bound her were on the floor behind the chair.

“The bitch took off,” said Hero. “Looks like you were right.”

“We walked into a trap,” said Reagan.

“Then what are they waiting for?”

Reagan shook his head as he thought about the situation. “It must have something to do with that kid. They must be waiting for us to open that door. Part of me thinks we should just tuck tail and run.”

“And leave the kid?” asked Hero.

Billy sneered and then looked at Reagan with devilish eyes. “Don’t they know we’re the three dumb bastards that took on an island of armed inmates to rescue a little girl? We’re pretty good at this sort of thing.”

“I’ve got a plan,” said Reagan.

Hero took a deep breath and then shook his head as he sighed. “I fucking hate it when you guys say that.”

*   *   *

August 24
th
, 20 years after the apocalypse

Za
ck is headed back to the church to save Laura.

Zack was alone in the dark, half a mile from his destination on a desolate road in the middle of densely packed woods that were hiding a horde of Greys. Coyotes howled nearby, probably warning their pack of the fire that was forcing zombies to evacuate the area. All the while the moon sat above, a Cheshire cat smile in the star filled scape.

A deer broke through the tree line ahead and stopped in the center of the road to look at Zack as he jogged along. It stared, seemingly shocked to see someone running the wrong direction, toward the fire. Then it bolted to the other side and back to the safety of the forest.

The pervasive scent of burning wood got stronger as he went, and he recalled the Red days when he was a child of the suburbs. The smell took him back to the street he grew up on, where his neighbors would burn the leaves they’d raked from their yards. That distinctive aroma hung on those afternoons. The crisp fall air cooled him as he played ball in the street. He focused on the memory as he continued his journey, passing the corpses of zombies that the Rollers had killed while guiding the caravan down this road.

A mob of Greys stood ahead, aimlessly shuffling along the road. The passing caravan had certainly attracted them from the forest, but the creatures had arrived too late to be enticed into a chase and now just stood waiting for another sign of life to
come their way.

Zack guessed that the smell of the fire dulled their senses, because the zombies didn’t turn on him as he approached. They continued to shamble until he was nearly on top of them, apparently unaware that a perfectly good meal was running directly into their midst.

There were seven of them, each of varying size and weight. These were clearly Greys, their skin rotted and leathery and their faces gaunt, taking on the appearance of a skull draped in wet linen. Their teeth were revealed by receding lips, yellow and demonically long, with purple tongues that licked at the air as if trying to get a taste of their next meal before they bit into it.

When the creatures finally noticed Zack, he was already swinging his axe. The red handled weapon sliced through the top of the first zombie’s
head, spilling fluid and brain matter from the cavity as if a mug had been tipped over, splattering the mess on the zombie next to it.

The clean cut of his first strike was a surprise. He’d expected to get the weapon lodged in the Grey’s skull, but the soft bone sliced like paper and he spun from the force of his swing. Zack shoved his right elbow into the face of the creature to his left that had been doused with his first victim’s fluid. The woman growled as she fell back into a short man that couldn’t hold her weight. They both tumbled as Zack tried to retreat a few steps to steady himself. The cumbersome suit restricted his movement and he cursed himself for never helping Abe fight fires in the past. Perhaps then he would’ve been more accustomed to the constricting rubber.

The other zombies lurched his way, and the nearest tried to grab at his jacket. The creature’s fingers squeaked on his back, unable to get a grip, and then tried to bite into Zack’s shoulder. The zombie bit down hard enough that his teeth loosened from the force, but he wasn’t able to break through the tough fireman’s jacket, and the creature’s teeth bent as he continued to chomp down. Zack pushed the monster off and then ducked as he swung the axe at the horde’s legs.

One of the zombies toppled as the axe sliced through both of his legs. Then Zack’s swing was finally stopped as the head of his axe got lodged in the kneecap of another creature.
He pulled it free and then chopped again, felling the monster as if it were a sapling.

Zack tried to stand, but the mob was moving in too fast. He got to one knee and thrust the axe sideways at the group to push them back. Their hands grabbed at him, and he felt their fingers hook into the straps on his chest. They growled and snapped, but he was stronger than all of them put together. He grit his teeth and kept pushing, rising from his lowered stance and driving the horde back like a professional linebacker toying with a high school squad. Some of the monsters fell over as he plowed through them, and then he stepped back and started swinging. He swiped the axe through the faces of the horde, splattering their features into a mess of bone, teeth, eyeballs, and tongues. The hideous
monstrosities gurgled and continued to advance, undeterred until he put his axe through their brains, finally ending their torment.