Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (18 page)

It took us another fifteen minutes to make it back outside, and it was only then that I allowed myself to take a deep breath—not just for stench-related reasons. My pulse was still going a mile a minute. I didn’t need to see that many zombies for them to give me the creeps.

“Business center next?” I proposed, more to distract myself from the idea of what we had turned our backs on than because I actually wanted to go search classrooms next.

“That’s the plan,” Nate confirmed, briefly checking the battery light on his communications unit. I wondered if I should do the same, but then it didn’t sound like the worst possibility to me if that thing died. Just one less chance of distraction that might make me jump and shriek at exactly the wrong moment.

As if thinking that had jinxed it, Burns’s voice startled me, coming scratchy and barely loud enough to hear in my right ear. “We’re checking the cafeteria right now. Heavy looting, but only had to bash in a couple of skulls to get here. Mostly deserted now. We’re doing the offices next, but looks like a bust.”

Taylor took that as a hint to check in, too. “Science is a bust, but Campbell is happy with some of the shit he found here. We’ll hit the library over on the sweep to that huge thing in the middle over there.”

“The auditorium of the Fine Arts center,” Nate supplied helpfully. “Sounds as good a meeting point is any. Sports was a bust, although there are some squatters in there. We’re doing Business next, before we head through one of the residence halls over to the auditorium.”

Cho cleared his throat, the feedback making me wince. “Shall we check the Fine Arts building first? I can already tell you that the offices will be a bust.”

Nate considered for a moment. “Do that. We can always hit the other campus if we don’t find anything here.”

With that cleared, he jerked his chin at me to proceed, which I did.

The entrance to the Business center was more fancy than that of the Sports center had been, with lots of windows set along a semi-circular structure, facing the parking lot. Some of that glass was still there, but even before entering, an immense stench wafted toward me, making me hold my breath. As I stepped up to the glass, I could see movement inside, making me flatten myself against the wall first before I dared glance around the corner. True enough, there was a huddle of maybe ten zombies in the entrance area beyond, and none of them seemed to be sleeping. Two were shambling around, moving with surprisingly smooth motions, while four more were crouching on the floor around the remains of what looked like a deer at first glance.

Ducking back, I quickly relayed the details to Nate, and he took a moment to get a look himself.

“We try to sneak past them, along the west wall,” he told me.

“Are you insane?”

The bland look I got in return didn’t bode well. “If they’re the only ones, this should be easy. And if not, chances are good we will find a lot more deeper into the building.”

Not my idea of a good plan, but I could see his reasoning. Exhaling slowly to try to steady my nerves, I nodded, and took another, longer look. Someone seemed to have started building fortifications here—hopefully not the zombies that I saw now—leaving the wall that Nate had indicated full of overturned desks and heavy sofas. It should be possible to find cover in between them, but the zombies seemed alert enough that I was sure that even scuffing a step would draw their attention. So slow and silent it was. I hated the plan from the very first minute.

I’d never been someone who had perfect physical control, but Pia had spent months during the winter trying to teach me, if not grace itself, at least a moderate grasp on how to move my limbs without falling flat on my nose. Equal times spent with self-defense and hand-to-hand combat training had given my reflexes somewhat of a boost, and the fact that my muscles held a lot more mass to them to actually keep my body steady and in place wasn’t a bad thing, either. I still felt miles out of my league as I started inching through the left-most broken window and along the wall, reaching the first overturned desk after maybe twenty seconds that felt like an hour. The zombies were still busy tearing apart their prey, while the others seemed to have no issue sleeping right next to that. Only the few that were up and moving around, seemingly at random, gave me some grief. Were they actually holding watch? Because if they were now smart enough to post sentries, this endeavor was doomed from the start.

On and on I moved from cover to cover, trying to keep my motions slow and deliberate, without anything hasty that might draw attention. Twice I had to stop in mid-step when one of the zombies paused, cocking its head as if listening, but not trying to track me visually. That was some relief, and let me move on once it went back to whatever it had been busy with before. It still took me forever to make it through the room and along the back of it until I could duck around a corner and into a hallway—only to find that full of yet more shamblers, most of them sleeping in the darker corridor. Instinct made me want to scramble back and run out of the room, but I forced myself to wait for Nate to catch up to me. He looked at the corridor, then back to me, and when I pointed at the stairs across from us, he nodded. So up we went.

The corridor in the upper floor was equally crowded, except for the places where doors led to offices with windows that let in the light. They seemed to avoid that. Calling up the floor plan of the building from the map I’d seen outside, I chose to head toward the east side of the building, where a residence hall lay. West it was just the street and the Sports center.

We passed a few classrooms that were completely dark, and judging from the stench and sounds, chock-full with zombies. A few more offices without windows that seemed about the same. Then a classroom that left the twilight of the rainy morning stream in with only five squatters in there that kept moving around in their seemingly restless sleep. The closer we got to the residence hall, the more zombies seemed to be piling up, to the point where I finally couldn’t quell the fright inside of me anymore and ducked into a maintenance closet, making sure that it was empty before I scampered right to the back of it. Nate followed, closing the door with barely any sound, casting us in complete darkness.

The sounds of my rapid breathing filled the room, and I gave myself a moment to tense all over and let my muscles shake, before I cut down on that impulse.

“This is the most insane thing we’ve done so far, you know that?” I whispered into the darkness, my voice pressed and harsh.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Nate replied dryly, then paused. “What would really be insane would be to have sex in here with all the zombies out there—“

I cut him off before he could say more, knowing all too well that he must have been grinning at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He gave something between a laugh and a chuff. “You’re such a spoilsport sometimes.”

Exhaling forcefully, I considered it for a second—but no. I might be more of an adrenaline junkie than I’d thought
Before
, but there were limits—and they’d clearly been reached.

“What do we do now? We’ve clearly found a hideout, but there’s no way we can sift through them and find one of the super-strong ones,” I pointed out.

Nate clucked his tongue. “There are a lot of them here, sure, but they don’t look too well-fed to me. I think we found the stragglers.”

“Stragglers?” I echoed.

“Stragglers of the real horde,” he replied, and I heard him fussing in the dark. “Status?” he asked, irritating me for a second until I remembered that we had our nifty com system now.

It took about a minute until Taylor replied, his voice slightly agitated. “Lots of the fuckers in the library, but from what we can tell, none of them really strong ones.”

“Same here,” Nate replied. “What about the Fine Arts building?”

We had to wait endless minutes until Burns replied. “We might have a winner here. Took us some time to find a room where we could talk. We haven’t checked the auditorium yet but I think that’s where the bulk of them are.”

The fact that the news made me feel a little relieved should not have been possible, with at least a thousand zombies already squatting in this building alone.

“Everyone head over there,” Nate ordered. “Bree and I will case the building from the outside. The rest of you find me a plan of all the exits. If we bust in there, I want to make sure we can get away clean.”

Taylor and Burns gave their affirmations, and the com channel went silent again.

“We’re really going to do this?” I asked, feeling my heart sink.

“Yup,” Nate confirmed. “At least if we can find a good target.”

It was only after I’d ducked back into the corridor and started making my way down to the next staircase that I realized that he’d used my first name. I wondered if that spoke volumes about how ready he thought me for the mission, or if it was something else. That I had brainpower to contemplate that told me that I wasn’t paying enough attention to the undead I was stepping around—so I quickly remedied that.

The busted windows of a ground floor corner office let us back out onto the parking lot to the south, and I greedily inhaled the sweet, clean air that washed over me, never minding the rain that splashed onto my face. Although it wasn’t really warm today, my entire body was soaked with sweat, my muscles already aching from keeping all that tension up for so long. And still, it only took a look from Nate for me to pull myself back together and aim toward the road that would bring us right over to our designated destination.

Taylor and Campbell might have reported that the parking lots to the east were clear, but I still slinked from tree to abandoned car to the next tree, staying as alert as possible. I thought I saw movement through the windows in the adjacent residence hall next to the Business center, but ignored it as no zombies came vaulting through them, aiming for us. With nothing to bar our way, we made good progress, and that kept up during our circuit of the auditorium. The rain seemed to drive the zombies inside, or they had learned not to sleep exposed to the elements, so we met no resistance whatsoever. Circling back to the glass front at the northernmost end of the building, we stopped, crouching right behind the stone steps that led up to the auditorium proper.

“Status?” Nate asked, waiting for the others to report. Which took long enough that I’d munched my way through half a pack of dehydrated apple slices, grudgingly letting Nate have the rest.

“I think we have a winner,” Burns reported. “No confirmation but visual seems good.” Not how I would have described it, but I figured it was all about the sentiment.

Campbell’s statement went along those same lines. “There’s an entire group down there that looks mighty healthy. I’d say at least one of them is one of the supercharged fuckers. Maybe two. You have to take a look.”

Nate paused. “How many exits do we have?”

“We didn’t find a plan anywhere,” Burns replied. “But one main exit in the auditorium, two side exits. Three emergency exits behind the stage and the changing rooms. The main entrance creates a decent funnel, if that’s what you’re planning. If you come in from the front, take the second emergency exit from the right. Glass doors, short corridor, then sharp turn to the left. That’s how we came in. It’s relatively clear because someone built a barricade about thirty feet in.”

Nate turned to me, the hint of a smile on his face. “I think that’s our entry vector.”

We took a moment to make sure that all our gear was ready—magazines were full, packs strapped tight—before we aimed for the door Burns had described. The heavy fire door looked remarkably unscathed, although there was a certain amount of scratches on the outside, likely from zombies that had been too dumb to operate the handle—or bust the lock. Nate preceded me, signaling me to close the door before following him. I expected to be cast in utter darkness, but there was light seeping in from somewhere ahead of us, just enough to let me see his outline as I followed.

Burns was already waiting for us at that turn he’d described, and we followed him up two flights of stairs into what I presumed was the top level. There was trashed furniture everywhere, but no zombies. And also no feces or vomit. I was just about to ask him where exactly they were hiding when we stepped through another door into what looked like some kind of projection room, and the stench hit me head on. So much for that.

The moment the door closed behind us, the last of the light was gone, making me panic for just a second. Fingers came down on my left shoulder and squeezed, giving me something to concentrate on to get my galloping pulse back in check. A second later, I heard Campbell whisper from somewhere in front and to my left.

“The cluster, left of center stage. What do you say?”

I presumed that someone was handing Nate a night vision scope because I couldn’t see where he would point his rifle in the somewhat enclosed space up here. The fingers on my shoulder disappeared, and a moment later I felt something cold and hard brush against the back of my knuckles. Rotating my hand, I took the offered scope, realizing that someone must have removed his from his rifle.

There probably was more light in this room than I realized because the scope was working moderately well. Not that what I saw through it made me particularly happy.

The front glass window of the projection room was intact, which was likely the only reason for why the stench hadn’t overwhelmed us yet. The entire auditorium was packed, with zombies sleeping everywhere. On the floors, the seats, and also up on the stage. It was so surreal that it wasn’t even that frightening anymore, but I was sure that my mind would make up for that later. Still, it wasn’t hard to make out the bunch that Campbell had indicated. Not that the others made a wide berth around them, no, but the five bodies up there looked unnaturally well fed, muscles standing out where rags didn’t cover them up. Muscles, and what looked like a healthy if lean amount of subcutaneous fat, speaking of better nutrition than we’d had all year long. The thought that the primal part of my brain was instantly envious of the zombies was ridiculous, but I couldn’t quite quell that instinct.