Desolation (36 page)

The officer nodded and squeezed the MP5 submachine gun
tightly.

 

“If she tries anything, kill her. If we lose the fight and civilians
start storming the building, kill her. Understand?”

 

The officer nodded again.

 

Lt. Willows pulled the officer inside and stormed out of the
room, slamming the door shut behind him.

 

The door made a metallic click as it locked.

Jerri sat hunkered down in the corner of the room like a
wounded animal, burying her face between her knees. Her manic laughter
had been replaced by soft sobs.

The officer walked into the middle of the room, sat down on the
wooden chair, and pointed his MP5 at her.

Jerri stifled her tears and looked up at the officer with her swollen
face and red eyes. The chain that once held tethered her handcuffs to the
floor lay strewn in front of her and the leg cuffs had dug into her ankles.
She looked absolutely pitiful.

“Please help me,” Jerri told the young officer as she stared at the
tip of the chain. It still had the metallic anchor attached to it along with
three exposed screws.

“Shut up,” the officer said with defiance as he kept the weapon
leveled towards her.

“Can you at least loosen my cuffs?” she asked as she used the
corner of the wall to help her get up on her feet. “I can’t feel my
hands…”

“No. Now shut up. I’m not warning you again,” the officer
replied.

 

Jerri sat in the corner of the room, silent, contemplating.
Outside, gunfire erupted in the distance.
47
T
he gunfire, which had lasted for hours, finally started to
subside. Seconds seamed to drag into eternity.

 

Jerri’s keeper appeared to grow increasingly paranoid as the
silence lingered.

 

They hadn’t spoken a word since his warning.

He continually glanced down at his wristwatch and kept an eye
cocked towards the door. Beads of sweat formed across his pale skin and
the MP5 shook in his clammy hands.

Something made a loud clunk in the hallway, making both Jerri
and her keeper flinch.

 

The noise happened again… and again… and again.
“What is that?” Jerri asked, looking down at the chain sprawled
between her legs.

 

The man held up a single finger and stood up.

“Shut it,” the man said as he curiously crept towards the door. He
kept his weapon pointed at Jerri as he moved but his attention was firmly
focused on the door.

Jerri gripped the chain with both hands from behind her back…
The man pressed his ear against the door, mouth agape. He kept
his eyes focused on Jerri.

 

The noise happened again, louder.

The man let out a panicked cry and darted away from the door.
He started to pace in the room, running his fingers through his hair and
keeping a firm grip on the MP5 with the other.

“They’re inside… they’re inside,” he muttered to himself again
and again as he paced. “They’re fucking inside…”

 

Jerri’s grip tightened on the chain…

 

The man suddenly stopped pacing and pointed the MP5 at Jerri,
sweat running down his forehead.

 

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” the man stammered.

 

Jerri’s blood ran cold; she had to do something fast. She quickly
looked over at the door.

 

“Wait… they’re opening the door!” she shouted in a terrified
tone as she stared at the door with wide eyes.

 

The man startled and quickly turned his attention towards the
door–

As soon as the man turned away, Jerri held the chain that was
shackled to her handcuffs and spun around suddenly, lashing the man
across the face.

A large gash opened across his cheek and blood started pouring
profusely from his wound. Stunned, he stumbled backwards and squeezed
the trigger–

Nothing happened.

 

Jerri spun herself around a second time, screaming, and lashed
the chain around the man’s neck.

 

Jerri forcefully pulled back, tightening it around the man’s neck.

He choked and fumbled with his weapon as he collapsed on the
ground, helplessly pulled forward by Jerri’s surprising force. He repeatedly
pulled the trigger of the MP5 in his panic but nothing happened; he never
disengaged the safety.

Once the officer was on the ground Jerri wrapped the chain
around his neck twice more, placed her knees down on his back, and
pulled the chain as tight as she could.

The officer’s face turned red and his eyes bulged out of their
sockets as the chain sunk deeper into his throat and cut off his air supply.
He dropped his MP5 and hurled Jerri off of his back.

Jerri tumbled off of him but kept the chain pulled snug as she lay
on the floor, inching away from the man as he flailed and panicked.
The man went limp and lay face down on the floor, blood
dribbling out of his ears and out from the corner of his eyes.

Jerri relaxed her grip and let the chain fall against the floor. She
scooted towards the man and quickly unwound the chain from the
corpse’s neck. She then brought her knees tightly against her chest and
slid her handcuffed hands underneath her feet and up to the front of her
body. Such contortionism would have been impossible for her before but
her frail frame had succumbed to malnutrition and starvation and made
the act surprisingly simple.

With her restrained hands now in front of her, she quickly
searched the officer’s pockets for a handcuff key.

No luck.
The banging outside the door continued.

She reached down and picked up the MP5 with both hands.
Flicking the safety off, she placed the barrel directly against one of the leg
irons that shackled her feet together.

She chose her right leg; she figured that she would only need to
get one leg free and then deal with the other leg and the handcuffs when
she comes across some keys.

Her hands were at least in front of her so she savored her small
victory.

 

She closed her eyes and gently squeezed the trigger.
The force of the gunfire sent sparks flying as bullets peppered
through the leg iron.

 

Sparks and shrapnel pelted her legs and made her scream but the
leg iron was defeated and fell against the floor.

Jerri, ears ringing, couldn’t hear the banging outside the room or
anything else for that matter. Everything had the diluted sound quality as
if she were holding her head underwater.

She quickly stood up and limped towards the door.

She tried to open it but it was locked; Lt. Willow was proving to
be more formable than she originally imagined. Hopefully he was one of
the countless dead now outside.

Cursing, Jerri limped over to the mirrored window and pointed
the MP5 towards it…

 

She pulled the trigger and swept the gun across the center of the
glass.

The glass shattered and pelted down against the floor in small
shards revealing a small room lined with wooden chairs and dark
computer monitors.

It was completely empty.
Jerri, stunned, lowered her gun and walked towards the room…

She thought she was in a prisoner holding area or an
interrogation room but the sign on the rear wall of the room quickly
corrected her suspicions.

“Son of a bitch,” Jerri muttered despite not being able to hear her
own words over her tinnitus. She carefully crawled through the shattered
window into the small adjacent room and looked back at the place she
had spent the past few hours in captivity.

A sign reading ‘Observation Room D’ hung above the broken
window.

 

Jerri frowned and made her way towards a wooden door at the
side of the room.

 

She slowly and methodically pushed the door lever down with the
barrel of her gun.

 

It was unlocked.

 

Jerri slowly stepped out into the hallway and scanned the corridor
with her weapon–

The hallway was painted all white and covered with mold. The
tiled ceiling sagged badly with moisture and most of the overhead
fluorescent lights long extinguished. Windows dominated both sides of
the corridor along with multiple rooms. Two decaying men wearing
laboratory coats lay strewn in the center of the corridor, long since dead.
Multiple metallic carts, just like the one Lt. Willow used, cluttered the hall
and were overturned.

A single fluorescent fixture had fallen loose from the ceiling and
dangled off of two sparking wires. The fixture struck against the wall as it
dangled in the breeze caused by a nearby vent. It struck the wall again…
again… and again.

The strange noise she heard was one mystery solved.
She hobbled over to one of the rooms across from her and
opened the door.

It was an observation room like the one she had just come from.
Empty.

An animal carcass was shackled to the floor but the nature of the
decaying animal could be anyone’s guess; rot had reduced the thing down
to clumps of fur, putrid meat, and gangly skeletal remains.

She made her way back out into the corridor and peered into one
of the long windows.

It was dark inside but she could make out rows of silver tables,
toppled microscopes, and other medical devices she couldn’t recognize. A
few decomposed corpses wearing tattered white hazmat suits were lying in
the room. One of them was sprawled across the table with his arms
hanging off of the sides. Each of the large laboratory areas appeared to be
connected to the corridor by sterile sally ports.

It didn’t matter; she had no desire to enter.

 

Jerri looked down the long corridor and saw a door with a
staircase sign on it.

 

She found her escape.

 

Her weapon felt light and she knew that she didn’t have many, if
any, rounds left so she would have to make her shots count.

She hobbled quickly towards the staircase…
The staircase door opened.

Jerri quickly ducked behind one of the toppled metallic carts and
held the gun against her chest, ready.

Lt. Willow staggered out of the staircase. He was soaked in
gasoline; the stench overpowering. A crimson blossom had formed on his
abdomen and blood trickled down his leg. He held a ring of keys in one
hand.
He started to whistle as he limped down the hall.

Jerri took a deep breath to build her nerve and then bounded up
from behind the cart, pointing the MP5 at him.

 

Lt. Willow stopped mid-whistle and froze, staring at her with a
strange mixture of admiration, disbelief, and disdain.

 

“How did you manage…?” he asked.

 

Jerri didn’t respond and kept the weapon pointed at him with
both hands.

 

Lt Willow cocked his head to the side and saw the observation
room’s door behind her was open. He laughed and shook his head.
“I should have locked that goddamn door,” he said with
embarrassment.

 

“Don’t move,” Jerri ordered as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“I didn’t come back down here to torture you if that’s what
you’re worried about,” he assured. “I just came down here to get you...
You're going to lead us back to Camp 6 once we get into Arizona. You'd
know that desert back-road shithole better than any of our
cartographers... even if we had any old maps left.”

“I'm not taking you anywhere,” Jerri said as she carefully took a
step backwards.

“Whatever. Don't be stupid,” he said, brushing her comment off.
“We're overrun here so we can't stay. I have two men and a decently
running jeep waiting topside. Of course we'll need gasoline along the way
but I'm sure you've sucked enough hose to know the basics on how to
siphon gasoline and I'm sure there are lots of abandoned cars on the
interstate. So quit wasting time and let's go.”

“I said no,” Jerri answered. “Just let me go.”
Lt. Willow tilted his head and stared at her for a few moments.

“Go? Go where?” he finally asked. “There is nowhere left but
Camp 6… Didn't I make that clear enough?”

 

“That’s my problem to figure out then isn’t it?” Jerri asked
defensively.

 

Lt. Willow frowned and shook his head, befuddled and infuriated.

“
Your
problem…?” he asked through gritted teeth. He took a
step towards her. “What about
my
problem? You and your infected crew
brought death to our doorstep! We lost EVERYTHING thanks to you!
There is a chance for us in Camp 6!”

“No, there isn’t!” Jerri shouted as she kept the gun pointed out in
front of her. “There never was!”

 

Lt. Willow furrowed his brow and gripped the keys tightly in his
hand.

“There is food… there is ammo… there are men. Fuck the
government. We can sustain
ourselves
…” Lt. Willow said in an exasperated
tone. He looked at her and narrowed his eyes. “But
you
ruined any chance
of that.”

Jerri slowly took a step back and shook her head.

“You’re wrong about Camp 6,” she explained. “It has none of
those things. A raiding party took over the camp. We lost everything…
Even before they attacked, things were falling apart. We never had
anything to offer you…”

Lt. Willow shook his head and pointed his finger at her, spitting
as he screamed at her.