Dominion of the Damned (35 page)

“
What the hell are you doing?” Chris asked him, but it became obvious as he unzipped his fly and began to relieve himself.

“
Keep moving,” the captain whisper-shouted to the rest. “If anybody else can’t hold it, piss your pants for all I care. We’re not stopping.”

They were well beyond the farm when the weak-bladdered idiot behind them shouted, “Hey! Wait up!”

“
That moron’s gonna get us all killed,” Chris muttered.

“
Keep moving,” said the Captain. “We’re almost there.”

“
Hey, guys!” shouted Johnny. Chris couldn’t help himself. He looked back, and saw the guy struggling with his zipper as he hurried to catch up with them. He also saw four shamblers coming after him, and closing in.

“
Behind you!” Chris shouted, more out of reflex than good sense. “
Run
!”

Johnny looked behind him. When he did, he tripped and stumbled. “Help!” he screamed, crawling toward them, but he wasn’t fast enough. “Help me! For God’s sake, don’t leave me!” But it was too late to do anything for him. Chris turned away as the shamblers fell on the poor bastard, whose screams were even worse than the cow’s had been.

“
There’s the tank,” said Ned.

“
Run!” the captain ordered, and everyone rushed toward the tank. Chris reached it first, and helped Ned up. When he looked back at the others, he saw that their fallen friend’s screams had attracted more shamblers, and they had noticed the rest of them. “They’re coming!” Chris shouted.

“
We can’t all fit in here,” Ned shouted from the roof of the tank. “Most of you will have to ride up top.”

“
We need more than one tank,” said the Captain. “I can drive one. Are any of them operable?”

“
Operable, sure, but there’s no fuel. I’ve taken it all to keep this one going.”

“
Damn it.” The captain looked around. “What about your truck?”

“
She runs.” Ned fished a set of keys out of his pocket and threw them down to the captain. He caught them and ran for the truck. As the others either followed him or clambered up onto the tank, Chris raised his gun and started firing in controlled bursts, blowing the heads off as many shamblers as he could. But the sound of gunfire only brought more. If they didn’t get out of there fast, they’d quickly be overwhelmed.

“
Chris!” Captain Burrel shouted. “With me!
Now
!”

Firing one more burst as he ran, Chris reached the back of the truck just as it started to pull out. Tim reached down and grabbed his hand to pull him up. He kept his weapon trained on the open back end of the truck as they sped past the shamblers. Once they were too far out of range for them to be an immediate threat, Chris leaned back, closed his eyes, and smiled.

They had done it. This was going to work.

FORTY-FIVE

The old jail house still stood, untouched by the tornado, just as it had stood for the last hundred years. Hannah ran inside and down the stairs, not wanting to shout and draw attention to the fact that anyone was inside. Once she was safely in the basement, she called out, “Alek? Are you here?”

“
In here,” he called. Hannah followed the sound of his voice to their underground lab and found him sitting on a stool with his back to her.

“
We have a situation,” she told him. “The tornado took out the fence. Shamblers are all over the camp. Everyone’s still in the shelters.”

“
I thought you were going to stay there until I came to get you.”

Hannah frowned, concerned. Something was wrong, she could tell by the sound of his voice. “I waited, but you were taking so long, I got worried. I thought someone should warn you about what was happening.” She stepped further into the lab. “Is something wrong?”

He turned to face her, and as he moved he revealed Zach, laid out on the table in front of him. Alek sat at his feet. The look of anguish on his face left no doubt. Zach was gone.

“
Oh, God. What happened?” She set her rifle by the door and rushed toward Alek, but halted just out of his reach. “Why is there blood on your mouth?”

Alek seemed surprised at first, then he wiped his mouth self-consciously. “It… it was all I could think to do to save him.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. “You….” She swallowed. “You turned him.”

“
I tried. I won’t know if it took until he wakes up.”

Hannah felt sick with grief. She moved closer and put an arm around his shoulders. “What happened?”

“
He thought he had the vaccine. He tested it on one of the rats, but… I’m not sure what happened. The rat bit him. It was infected.”

Hannah covered her mouth and fought to hold back tears. “What happens now?”

He gave a defeated half-shrug. “We wait and see whether he wakes up a vampire or a shambler. Either way, he’s going to wake up.” He held up a gun that she hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. “And then I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”

“
Alek…” She hesitated, not wanting to make the offer. In the short time she’d known Zach, she had already come to think of him as a friend. But she hadn’t been nearly as close to him as Alek had been, and he’d already lost too many friends in the last day or so. “I can do it. You don’t have to be the one—”

“
Yes I do.” He looked over at his friend. “I owe it to him.”

She knew it was useless to argue. “What can I do?”

“
Just… be here.”

“
Okay.”

She pulled up a stool and sat his vigil with him in silence. It took another ten minutes before the stirrings began. Zach’s fingers twitched, followed by jerking movements throughout his body. Then he sat up.

“
Zach?” asked Alek. “Can you hear me?”

Hannah held her breath, hoping against hope for an intelligent response as Zach turned his head to look at Alek with bloodshot eyes. When he opened his mouth, he emitted an unintelligible groan, and snapped his teeth. Hannah let go of the breath she’d been holding, along with the tears.

Alek raised the pistol and took aim at Zach’s head. “I’m sorry, old friend.” He pulled the trigger. Then he dropped the gun and slid off of the stool to the floor.

Hannah dropped to her knees and pulled him into her arms. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as a sob ripped through him. She hated that she knew what he was feeling, and she hated even more that he had to feel it. “I’m so sorry.”

She held him another moment before he extracted himself from her arms and climbed to his feet. He reached down to help her up. When she took his hand, he pulled her up and into his embrace, his mouth crashing into hers in a ferocious kiss, fueled by grief and anger. She returned his kiss just as ferociously, pouring all of her own rage and grief into it. She didn’t know how long they stood there ravaging each other, using each other as a means to forget for even a precious minute.

Then reality returned. Alek pulled her close against him and they just held each other tightly. “I love you,” he said, his voice raw, barely more than a rasp. “I know it’s sudden, and scary, and you don’t have to say anything, but I do. And I need you to know it.”

Hannah held him quietly, and let his confession sink in. The only surprise was how
un
surprised she felt. She
did
know it. He conveyed it in his actions, in every look he gave her. She was only twenty, and she’d never really been in love before. She’d had crushes, and she’d dated, but she’d never felt anything this intense. All she knew was that in the short time she’d known Alek, he’d become an integral part of her life, and just the thought of losing him made it hard to breathe. That it hurt when he hurt, and that she’d go as far to protect him as he would to protect her, which she knew was pretty damn far. And that it was easier, and far more pleasant, to imagine a future with him than without.

If that wasn’t love, then what was?

“
I love you, too,” she said.

“
Hannah, you don’t--”

“
Shut up, Alek.” She looked up at him, and just let him read her feelings in her face. He took her face in his hands, and planted a kiss on her forehead, before resting his head against hers.

Then, sniffling, he slowly let go and pulled away. “I need to take care of the body.”

“
We can’t. Not yet. If we burn it, we’ll bring the shamblers, and we don’t have time to bury it.” She put a hand on Alek’s arm. “We can put him in another cell for now, and take care of him when things settle down.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but at last, he nodded. Gently, he picked up his friend and carried him out of the lab. Hannah found another lab coat and grabbed it before following. There were three underground cells, and one of them had yet to be modified or occupied. They placed Zach in that one, and covered him with the lab coat.

Hannah returned to the lab to fetch the guns. That’s when she noticed the syringe lying on the worktable, next to Zach’s notes. “Alek?” she called. When he entered the lab, she pointed to the remnants of Zach’s work. “What’s this?”

Alek examined the syringe, then picked up the notebook and started leafing through it. “He said he thought he had the vaccine. He obviously didn’t, but…” His voice trailed off as he read through the notes.

“
But?”

“
He was close. Really close. If I could figure out what he missed….”

“
Then we’d better get to work.”

Alek shook his head. “No, we have to get back to everyone.”

“
I told them to stay in the storm shelters until we come get them. They’ll be safe in there. Not super-comfortable, but safe. We have time.” She grabbed his wrist. “Alek, you said yourself that this is too important, that you should be here working on it. If we can figure this out tonight, it could change everything.”

He still looked like he wanted to argue, but then he nodded. “All right. Let’s get to work.”

FORTY-SIX

The good news was that they got everyone to the old fort. The bad news was that they attracted plenty of shambler attention in the process. They were coming in droves, and despite the survivor’s guns and the speed of their vehicles, they barely managed to get everyone inside the fort before they had to turn around and defend it.

It was Z-Day all over again. Chris didn’t understand how there could still be so many after all this time. In some ways, it was worse. Back then, the shamblers had been newly deceased. But this time, most of them had been dead and walking for months on end, and were so rotted and decayed that he couldn’t see how it was even possible that they were still on their feet. The smell alone overwhelmed the fort, threatening to gag everyone inside.

Chris climbed up to one of the shooting slits at the top of the fort. When the fort was built, it was meant to defend the soldiers and townspeople from raids, designed to shield from arrows and buckshot while making way for the superior fire power of the Cavalry. At least there were no arrows to dodge, no spears or shot pellets. Just the relentless mass of the dead, and the only weapon that preceded them was that awful, sickly-sweet and sour smell of rotting meat.

He jammed the barrel of his gun into the slit in the wall and fired. He managed to cut about twenty of them down before he ran out of ammo. To his right and left, he heard the useless clicking of machine guns and automatic rifles running out of ammunition.

Chucking his gun, he dropped back to the ground and sought out Captain Burrell. “We’re running out of ammo,” he said. “There are more guns in the auditorium. We need to get them.”

A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “Oh, no you don’t,” said his mother. “You’ve done enough volunteering for one day.”

“
And we made it, didn’t we? We’re better off here than we were in those storm shelters, and you know it. But we could be stuck here forever if we don’t get more ammo.”

“
He’s right,” said the Captain. “We need a plan to get supplies.”

“
Oh, don’t you start! Here.” She shoved the baby at him, and turned back to Chris, grabbing his face in both hands. “Son, why do you have to be so much like your father? I could barely take being married to a hero. I
can’t
take having my only son risking himself every chance he gets.”

Chris was pumped up on adrenaline, but his mom’s fear and worry took the wind out of his sails. He pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ve done this before. I’ll be okay.”

Reluctantly, she let him go and took Noah back from the captain. “You’d better,” she said. “If you’re not, I won’t be, either.”

“
Take four men,” said the captain. “The shamblers haven’t made it around the back of the fort yet, so slipping out that way is your best chance. They’re concentrated here, so if you’re quiet you should be able to make a wide path around them and get to the auditorium. We’ll do our best to keep them out in front so you can come back in the way you came.”