Season of Rot (3 page)

“You have no idea how good,” he said, and
then he laughed over the airwaves.

***

Alyson raised her head and looked down at
Mitchell. A smile stretched across her lips as the bed sheets
shifted over her naked, sweat-drenched body. “Was it good for you?”
she said with a chuckle.

Mitchell ran his hand through her short, wet
red hair. “You know it was. But I’ve got to get back to work. I’m
on sentry duty, honey. Jack would tear me a new one if he knew I
was here.”

Alyson rolled off him, her sweetness suddenly
gone. “Just don’t forget to pay up on your way out,” she told him,
stretching out on her back and closing her eyes.

Mitchell got out of bed and got dressed. He
placed the packet of drugs on her nightstand and turned to glance
at her a final time before he headed out the door. “Alyson...”

“Shut up, Mitchell. You know why I do it. I
don’t need another lecture.”

Defeated before he began, he slammed the door
behind him. Alyson sighed. Men were fools, all of them. Give them a
good time and sooner or later they all started to fall in love with
you. Fuck him. If she wanted to spend her last days as messed up as
she could be, that was her choice. If she overdosed, then the end
would be here that much quicker and she would be out of this
hellhole. She wouldn’t have to wait for the creatures to find a way
in and rip her apart; she wouldn’t starve to death like the rest of
the assholes in the hospital.

Only Laura, Jack, and the medical staff had
access to the hospital’s stash of pharmaceuticals, and if fucking
people like Mitchell—who could get the keys from Jack every once in
a while—got her the shit she needed, hell, it was only sex right?
She wished she was brave enough to steal a gun or get one from
Mitchell, brave enough to stick it in her mouth and pull the
trigger. The drugs made her feel good though, and they weren’t
anywhere near as messy. She knew that, given time, the drugs would
do the job, and she was content on most days. With thoughts of slow
suicide floating in her head, Alyson fell asleep in the darkened
room.

***

“Vince, let it go,” Laura said, fighting the
urge to give up and storm out of the room. Somehow the meeting had
spiraled out of her control and had turned into a schoolyard spat
as Vince and Jack resurrected one of their long running
arguments.

“Laura, I know Jack and Mitchell are close,
but come on! The guy’s a freakin’ murderer. I just don’t feel
comfortable with him having access to so many key areas, much less
the damn arsenal he has locked up in his quarters. I’m sorry, but
it’s the truth. The guy gives me the creeps.”

“Mitchell paid for his crimes,” Jack argued.
“When I hired him he was already out on parole. He’s saved my ass
more than once since I met him. I trust the man with my life, and
he’s been instrumental with helping me keep things straight around
this place.”

“Face it, Jack, he’s your muscle. A thug
who’d put us all to the wall and blow our brains out if you told
him to. God knows what he does when you’re not out there with
him.”

Suddenly the door to the conference room
burst open. Jack’s instincts kicked in and he drew his sidearm,
barely stopping himself from putting a bullet through Daniel’s
face.

Daniel stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and
out of breath, staring at Jack’s gun. “Sorry,” he said, holding up
a hand as if to block a bullet. “I... I just made contact with
someone who can help us.”

Laura fell into her chair. “What? Who?”

“His name is Martin Kier. He’s military,
holed up in some kind of huge bunker about a hundred miles south of
the city.”

“Jeez, a hundred miles.” Vince whistled.

“How many in his group?” Jack asked, getting
right to business.

“Just him. He’s the only one left alive
there.”

“One man? A hundred miles away? How can he
help us?” Laura was confused, but she knew there must be some
reason for Daniel’s excitement or he wouldn’t have butted in on the
meeting. He seldom left the radio room.

Daniel caught his breath and pulled up a
chair at the table. “According to Martin, he’s the sole survivor of
the base, yes, but the compound was built to house a couple of
hundred people: scientists, military, high ranking officials. It’s
essentially a giant underground fallout shelter, but it was being
used as a research lab before the plague hit. There was a staff in
place, working on various projects when the dead virus—or whatever
you want to call—broke out. The base closed itself off
automatically, trapping them all inside.

“Unfortunately, the virus had already
breached the compound, despite its safety protocols. A war like the
one in the city was fought down there, inside the complex. Unlike
the military up here, they won. It was costly, but they did win.
The virus mutated, though, and became airborne or something. I
didn’t really understand all of what Martin was saying. It was a
bit over my head. He made it through it all though. Now he’s just
sitting around with years of stockpiled supplies: food, meds,
weapons, even fuel!”

“Still, I don’t see how that helps us,” Jack
interjected.

“I’m getting to that part. Martin is a pilot
and it’s a military base. There are two helicopters there, both of
them for military transport. He could easily reach the hospital by
air and either bring us some of the stockpiles or take a few of us
at a time to the base. It’s just a matter of deciding what we want
him to do.”

“You’ve asked him about all this?” Laura
asked, unwilling to accept that such a miracle could simply fall
into their laps.

Daniel calmed down a bit. “Well, no. I
haven’t asked him to fly us to the base, but he offered to bring
the supplies we need without any prompting on my part.”

Vince placed his hands on the table. “That
seems odd. If he’s willing to share all this stuff, wouldn’t it be
easier to move us there rather than have him haul it all out here?
Could he even realistically make that many trips? And why waste so
much if he just brings part of it and decides to stay here when he
lands on the roof?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted, “but I trust
him. I could hear the sincerity in his voice. He has to be lonely
out there. I would be. Maybe all the stuff that happened down there
is haunting him and he just wants out of the place.”

Laura nodded. “Okay, Daniel. If you trust him
so much from one conversation, I’ll buy into his desire to help us,
but how do we handle this?” She looked to Jack and Vince for their
input.

“Have him fly over a run of supplies,” Vince
replied. “It couldn’t hurt if he’s truly alone. There are nearly
fifty of us. Numbers will be on our side even if he’s lying. Hell,
a transport full of soldiers is something we could handle as long
as we know when they’re coming. And if he’s telling the truth, we
get the stuff we need
and
we get to meet him face-to-face
and check him out for real. Then we can decide what to do from
there.”

Jack nodded, agreeing with Vince. For once,
the hippy had a well thought-out and sane suggestion.

“We’re agreed then,” Laura said. “ Daniel, go
invite our new friend over for a visit. Jack, I want you and
Mitchell to prepare for any of the darker things that could come
from this.”

“We’ve got one surface-to-air missile left
from the armory raid before the hospital was completely
surrounded,” Jack informed her. “It’ll do just great if things go
south.”

“What about me?” Vince asked. “Don’t I get a
part in this?”

“Yes, Vince, you do. I want you to make a
list of the order we’ll leave in if this Martin is for real and we
opt to move to his base. Decide who’s best suited to make the trip
first, and who needs to stay here until everyone else is safely
there.”

“That’s it?”

“No. I want you to inform everybody as soon
as possible. Not everyone may want to leave the hospital, and
you’ll need to know who wants to stay. You can also prepare people
for what’s coming, good or bad.” Laura stood up. “Well people,
let’s get to it.”

***

Chris sat rocking Natalie, an empty bottle of
formula below his chair. She cooed, gazing up at him with her
beautiful green eyes, so much like her mother’s. Chris wrapped her
blanket tighter around her tiny body as his mind raced with Vince’s
news. He couldn’t believe it. Salvation had come to them out of the
darkness. Hope was with them after all.

The base had to be huge. Full of tunnels and
open spaces, protected by thick metal walls, concrete, and the
earth itself. No more fear that the dead would find a way in.
Natalie would be safe. She could grow up without living in fear.
She would have places to play, big spaces where he could let her
run alone. For years to come she would have a life more normal than
he could have dared to hope for. When Vince asked if he and Natalie
would be willing to go, Chris hadn’t hesitated in the
slightest.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered
to Natalie as she fell asleep in his arms; for the first time in a
long while, he meant it. He only wished Rebecca had lived long
enough to see her daughter enjoy a better life.

***

Night fell over the city, embracing the
hospital in its darkness. Thousands upon thousands of zombies
surrounded the building, wandering mindlessly and biding their
time, waiting for their prey to emerge.

According to Vince’s poll, not a single
person—other than Alyson—refused to gamble on the new home that
fate had offered them. Jack couldn’t blame them for risking it all.
In the hospital you could see the dead if you bothered to look out,
and you could hear their hungry voices calling up to you. Sometimes
it seemed that the dead were using a form of psychological warfare
against them, though Jack knew it was impossible. The creatures
were just drawn to this place because they could sense the warm
blood and flesh entombed in its walls.
Entombed
, he thought.
It was such a perfect word to describe their situation. All of
them, including him, were dead in the long run. They just hadn’t
fallen down yet.

After helping Jack prepare for the guest—or
guests?—who would arrive in the morning, Mitchell returned to
Alyson’s quarters. She lay naked and uncovered on the bed, so
drugged up she wasn’t even aware of his presence, her eyes distant,
her mind drifting somewhere far away. He considered taking her just
because he could. If she remembered later when she came to, he
could always pay her, but in the end Mitchell dismissed the idea.
He stood at her window, listening to the moans of the dead below.
Their cries seemed louder tonight, more desperate.

On the bed, Alyson rolled over onto her
stomach. Mitchell turned and took in her naked form, lusting after
her despite the session they’d shared this morning. Physical
release distracted him and kept him sane—if anyone in the place
could
be called sane. It was his escape,
his
drug.
Alyson’s red hair was the fire that cleansed his soul.

He loosened his belt and walked toward the
bed. For a while he would join Alyson in heaven. It would help pass
the time until dawn.

Two

As the sun rose from behind the distant
mountains, Daniel waited on the hospital roof, smoking one of the
last few cigarettes to cope with the excitement and stress. Laura
and Vince stood by his side, flanked by Jack, Mitchell, and two of
Jack’s hospital guards. The men all held assault rifles, except for
Jack, who shouldered their sole missile launcher, ready to fire the
instant anything went wrong.

They heard the helicopter before they saw it,
the roar of the engine drowning out the soft, distant noise of the
dead below.

Daniel had brought a portable radio. He
switched it on. “He’s coming,” he said to Laura, stating the
obvious as the small helicopter made its way toward the
hospital.

Vince watched it through a pair of
binoculars. Jack studied it through the missile launcher’s
sight.

“He’s alone!” Jack barked over the
whump-whump-whump
of the helicopter’s blades. “Or looks to
be.”

Daniel’s radio awoke in his grasp. “Joseph
Hospital, this is Martin Kier approaching your position. Do I have
permission to touch down?”

Laura nodded at Daniel, then motioned for the
others to stand down and clear the space for the bird to land
safely. She thanked God that Vince persuaded everyone else to stay
inside. The excitement over Martin’s arrival had reached a fever
pitch. If it hadn’t been for Vince’s convincing nature the whole
group of survivors might have been on the roof. It was chaotic
enough with just the small group she had.

The helicopter landed and its engine shut
down. The man who called himself Martin Kier took off his flight
helmet. He stared at them for a second, appraising them through his
thick, dark glasses before stepping out of the helicopter. Martin
wore green military fatigues, and he never removed the heavily
tinted glasses as he came to greet them. He looked to be in his
mid-twenties, well built and of average height. His midnight-black
hair grew slightly longer than the mandatory military cut. The man
moved with feline grace as he offered his hand to Jack.
“Hello.”

Jack didn’t take Martin’s hand. “You can call
me Jack. The lady in the lab coat is Dr. Laura Smith. We’re the
leaders of this group. That chain-smoker over there with the radio
is Daniel.”

“Whoa.” Vince shook Martin’s hand and
introduced himself. “I’m one of the people in charge here too.
We’re damn glad to see you. Sorry about Jack. Being a rude,
hard-ass is his reason for living.”

Martin smiled, or attempted to. The
expression looked awkward and out of place on his lips. “I brought
the food and gear you requested.”

Vince waved at the helicopter dismissively.
“Don’t worry about that now. Good old Mitchell and the guys can
unload it. I bet you’re tired from your flight, and we have a hell
of a lot to talk about. Let’s go inside and get you a drink.” Half
joking, he added, “You brought coffee, right?”