The Living Dead Series (Book 2): World Without End (11 page)

Forgetting completely about Sylvie and Mac for the moment, she ran, dodging and ducking the dead to get to Brian. He was down, yanked off his feet by a crawling, mostly skinned woman still holding a dog lead in one hand. She held his ankle fast and slowly but inexorably pulled him toward her open mouth. Bea stomped her wrist and arm but it had no effect. She had to smash the gore-filled skull before the woman stopped writhing and lay still.

“I tried to shoot her, Bea. I missed and then I dropped the gun when she pulled me down.” Brian searched the ground frantically for the revolver, finally finding it under the corpse. The snow picked up and Bea couldn’t see Sylvie and Mac anymore.

She turned him around to face across the Mall. “Do you see the Gallery? That side right there is the piazza entrance. The doors and windows are broken out and you can get in with no problem. There will probably be some infected in there, definitely don’t go in the basement. Find an empty room and close the door and wait for me.”

He was hesitant. “Bea, you have to-”

She cut him off. “Brian, I’ll be right behind you, I swear.”

He ran, easily evading the reaching hands of the dead. Doubling back, she found Sylvie stomping an infected man down. She still had one arm around Mac, who was struggling to stay on his feet. Together the two women half carried him the rest of the way to the piazza entrance, the dead following.

Surprisingly there were no infected inside. They must have wandered back out. Looking behind her at their grisly entourage she knew they didn’t have a lot of time. Snow had blown in through the broken glass and Brian’s footprints were visible. They tracked him to the cloakroom.

“Brian, we’re here.” Bea tapped the closed door and Brian emerged, looking very small and frightened.

“Mac, can you make the stairs? We’ll be safer up there I think.” Bea looked around nervously.

The following dead were invading the lobby, stumbling and moaning as they advanced. Sylvie led the way to the set of back steps that accessed the administrative part of the building. They made their way slowly up, supporting Mac as they went. The dead had difficulty with the steps and kept falling back. The door at the top of the stairs was closed and wouldn’t open without a key card. Frantically Bea searched her pockets and pulled out her card. She ran it through the wrong way and the door wouldn’t open.

“Slow down, Bea.” Sylvie said.

Looking down she saw that a dead policeman was halfway up the steps, dragging his intestines along behind him. She took a deep breath and ran it through again, the right way. This time the locked door clicked open and all four of them fell inside and shut the door.

The hallway was quiet up here. The normalcy of it gave Bea a surreal feeling and she swayed a little and had to lean against a wall for just a second. Brian took her hand and they walked on, passing darkened offices until they came to Sylvie’s brightly lit one. The battered metal box was where Bea had last seen it, on the middle of the desk, and the door was still locked.

Mac used the butt of his rifle to smash the door glass and reached inside to unlock the door. Sylvie made him sit in her desk chair before opening the old box and pulling out an aged manila envelope. She unwound the string tab securing it then turned the scanner on and went through her desk drawer.

“This is just great. I don’t have my flash drive,” she exclaimed but continued to sort through the desk.

Bea fished around in her pocket and pulled hers out. “Put it all on this.”

They loaded the scanned documents then Sylvie ran off extra copies. Although there were no windows in here, Bea knew it would soon be dark outside. She wondered if David’s helicopter had taken off yet. The little tiles she had seen before were still stacked along the table and Bea now saw what was missing in the second embalming process detailed. The brain removal step had been omitted and that was why the corpse rose from the embalming table. The tiles were a reminder and a warning for the embalmers.

“So what do we do now? How long do we stay here?” Brian wanted to know.

Sylvie shushed him but didn’t look up from the documents on the screen. Bea leaned over her shoulder and began to read.

27 April 1945

W
e had been getting good and pissed every night since we opened up Bergen-Belsen. I’d never been much of a drinker before or since but it was the only way we could face what we had to deal with during the day. Dear God, how can these Germans tell us they knew nothing about what was going on here? We smelled the rot and excrement two miles before we even got to the camp. Making them help with the clean-up and the burials was good for these complacent gits because it gave them a chance to see what their beloved Fuehrer had been up to for all these years. I must say I enjoyed the sight of them, sick and retching as they dragged the emaciated bodies from the piles.

We started to hear from the locals, bloody gits, that there was another camp close by. Of course none of them had anything to do with it, they were just good little Deutsch, but they had noticed trucks coming in and out of a heavily forested section of the mountain. Nazi officers from there sometimes came into the local bierhaus, flirted a little with the bier fraus, but never spoke about what they did at the camp.

I requisitioned a jeep that Thursday and got a group of lads along with some medics then followed the directions from the townspeople up into the forest. We found a decent road, mostly dirt and gravel. After about two kilometres we stopped at a strongly fortified fence. Although there were guard towers, no one manned them and after Smythe scaled the wall and opened the gate, we drove through.

The camp appeared to be abandoned. One building had burnt to the ground. What evidence remained indicated it had been an office. Emptied metal filing cabinets and partially burned file folders lay on the muddy ground. A few intact papers had blown against the fence and I secured them. My German is quite sketchy but I did make out the words Unaufhaltsam Soldate but little else. There was the expected smell of rotting bodies but we saw nothing, no piles of dead, none of those make-shift, shallow gravesites that left them half sticking out of the ground. Even though it was late April it was still cold here and we stood in the freezing wind, wondering where the hell the bodies were meant to be? They had to be here. The smell was that strong.

Smythe shouted from somewhere up ahead and we followed the sound, finding him standing next to a cement block building with a metal roof and a padlocked, thick metal door. As we drew closer the smell intensified and I knew we’d found the poor bastards. Or their remains anyway. Finding an ax near a wood pile we attacked the heavy lock, opened the door and stood back.

The smell rolled out of there like a putrid wave. Lancaster reached some bushes before he vomited up his breakfast and several others looked a little green. I knew I didn’t want to see what was in there and wondered if we couldn’t just get some equipment out, dig a hole, then bulldoze the whole building into it, bodies and all, even if it was against regulations but of course I didn’t. There were people desperate for news of their loved ones and they would want to know if they had been found, dead or alive. We had to go through the bodies and try to identify them.

A groan, very faint, drifted out the door. I told Lancaster to go back and tell the medics we’d found survivors. There was no way to know if they were friend or foe at this point and we went in, bayonets at the ready.

The light coming in through the doorway revealed a throng of standing, shuffling bodies. Some wore German uniforms, some hospital gowns and others wore nothing at all. Although most were adult males, there were several women and four children among them. They turned as one at our entrance and attacked and though they carried no weapons they used their teeth and nails to great advantage. I bayonetted the closest one through the stomach. He stopped but, astoundingly, he kept standing with arms outstretched toward me. He made biting motions with his mouth and I heard his teeth clack. Shaken, I looked around. The lads were having similar problems, almost everyone had a German stuck on the end of his Lee-Enfield.

I backed up and pulled the blade out, whereupon my attacker came at me again. This time I used the butt of my rifle on his head and he went down. His head cracked like a melon and black, viscous chunks spilled from his skull.

More shaken than I cared to admit, I called for a retreat. As my men backed out into the light, the Germans poured out after them. We fired but they kept coming. Three of them took Oswald down. I managed to knock them off, giving him enough time to get to his feet before they closed in again. He was pouring blood from bites in his neck and hands and soon collapsed. Once again I managed to bludgeon his attackers and they stayed down this time but Oswald was already dead.

At this point I realized that they only stayed down if you knocked them in the head and I shouted, “The heads, lads, get them in the head!”

This put us to rights again and we soon had all of them down when, shockingly, Oswald sat up. Smythe reached down to give him a hand up and Oswald bit him, tearing away the flesh like a dog would. Smythe screamed and staggered backward but Oswald kept coming after him. I took aim and shot the poor chap in the head. Black tissue flew everywhere and Smythe abruptly sat down on the ground and wiped his face. A medic soon had Smythe’s hand cleaned and bandaged and we left this camp of nightmares.

The bodies were never completely identified. Some were definitely Germans but others might have been prisoners of war and/or Jews. The papers we found, though incomplete, indicated that at least some of them were victims of wounds sustained while serving under Rommel in Egypt. Others were probably Polish prisoners brought in specifically for medical experimentation.

-personal letter from Leftenant Royce McDonald intercepted and confiscated by military censors.

Researchers note: It is believed that this was the beginning of the Bergen-Belsen “typhus” outbreak in which an additional 13,000 died after the camp was liberated. The origin of the illness that devastated that camp remains a closely guarded secret within British intelligence files to this day. For more information from this time frame see vault # 32, Whitehall sub-basement 4. See recovered documents from un-named camp near Bergen-Belsen below.

Letter from SS Standartenfuhrer Schmidt to SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Heinz, 3 December 1943

Dear Comarade Heinz,

As you know, Dr. Mengele has requested 150 subjects for research involving your project Unaufhaltsam Soldate.  Our staff members at Bergen-Belsen are happy to supply whatever subjects are needed for the glory of the Reich. In addition to the 135 Jews (all guilty of race pollution) sent previously, we are transferring fifteen gypsy women that arrived last evening from another camp.

Report from Dr. Carl Clauberg to Dr. Josef Mengele, 5 February 1944

Dear Dr. Mengele,

Tests are proceeding on the new subjects. Our work up to this point indicates the illness brought back by the desert soldiers is caused by a virus rather than bacteria.

The human subjects react quickly when infected. The accelerated decay they exhibit can be slowed down but not stopped by subjecting them to extreme cold. Rigor is not seen in subjects even after respiration and pulse have ceased. Limbs remain flexible but uncoordinated in movements. Whether subjects are allowed to die of the virus or are euthanized, all revive and reanimate.

Virus samples in the laboratory are easily destroyed by heat exceeding 41 Celsius. All experiments injecting subjects with near-boiling water have resulted in accelerated death. Autopsies reveal advanced decay of most organs with the exception of the brainstem where little necrosis was observed. I should add the creatures are still ‘alive’ for most of these autopsies and exhibit no symptoms of pain, other than low guttural articulation.

Intelligence levels are observably low and animal-like in nature. Vision deteriorates quickly but hearing remains unusually acute. Subjects continue violent and fearless but cannot be controlled or directed to perform the simplest of tasks.

Experiments will continue as scheduled (see enclosed timeframe) but it is my opinion that these creatures are of little use to the Reich and due to the rapidly spreading nature of the virus are too dangerous to loose against an enemy on a field of battle. They might be successfully launched against an isolated urban population but there would remain the problem of disposal and spreading contamination we could not control.

My recommendation is for a Sonderaktion once all scheduled experiments are complete. Great care must be taken that the brainstem is completely sundered as unless that is done the creatures will not truly die.

Sylvie continued to scroll through the documents. “That’s it? There was no mention of a cure at all.”

Bea said gently. “It was an ‘Unstoppable Soldier’ program, Sylvie. They wanted to weaponize them, not cure them.”

“But we do know now that heat can destroy the virus. That’s something at least.”

“I guess it is but…” She trailed off. Mac’s eyes were closed and he looked exhausted.

“Tell me again, where was David going? I wasn’t paying attention.” Sylvie’s voice was brisk and all-business again.

“The South Lawn of the White House. He was getting on a helicopter leaving for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.”

“The CDC? Perfect. That’s exactly where Mac needs to go.”

“Sylvie, stop. You’ve already gone way-” Mac tried to interrupt but Sylvie wouldn’t listen.

“Just stop, Mac. I’m making this decision. We’re going to try for Atlanta and see what they can do.” Her voice was firm and her mind was obviously made up.

Mac sighed. “I’m tired, Sylvie. So tired. But if that’s what you want, I’m in. Bea, I’m asking
you
now and you have to swear you’ll do it; put me down when it’s time. I don’t know exactly when that will be but you have to do it.”

Bea couldn’t agree to that and turned away. Mac put his head in his hands briefly then seemed to get his second wind.

“All right then, we don’t have long until dark. I’ve never been to the White House, can you believe that? I’ve lived here all these years and haven’t been once. Now is as good a time as any.”

Going out the way they came in was not going to work. The dead had managed to climb the staircase and the sound of palms slapping the door echoed down the hallway. The only way out was a fire escape ladder leading down to a curved alley off 3
rd
Street.  A lone, dead woman lurched between the stone walls, unable to find her way out.

“She shouldn’t be any trouble. We’ll try to avoid the Mall completely and stay on side streets as much as possible until we get close. After that, pray.” Mac’s expression was grim.

They made it down the slippery ladder without mishap. The female zombie was slow to register their arrival but once she noticed she attacked immediately. Her red-stained face and blouse indicated she had fed well at some point but was clearly eager for more. The tight, tailored jacket she wore had slipped off her shoulders and pinned her arms frustratingly to her sides but her mouth chomped at them eagerly. Brian kicked her hard in the knees and once she was down, Bea punctured her skull. The snapping mouth and writhing black tongue went slack. They walked on.

In minutes they were within sight of the decapitated Washington Monument again. Bea shivered at the sight of it and the mutilated, shuffling creatures clustered around. She contrasted this image with the usual sight of families and school groups taking pictures and picnicking on the grass in the spring and wondered if those days would ever come back.

The snow picked up and they walked faster. They easily evaded the few dead they encountered in the street but noticed that they were now followed by a growing mass of them, easily outpaced but menacing nonetheless.

“How do they know we’re here?” Brian whispered. “Their eyes are practically useless. Can they really hear that well? I don’t get it.”

Bea shook her head. “Who knows? Let’s just get away from them.”

“I’ve thought about it and our biggest danger is if they trap us somewhere and we have to fight our way out. They’re not smart but there are more of them than us and they’re persistent. Also, we’re going to die if we can’t get out of the city. Eventually they
will
get to us.” His voice wavered a little.

Bea shouldn’t have been surprised he’d figured it out. Right now she wished he weren’t quite so smart. She reached over and took his hand.

“They might but I’m not planning on letting that happen. Let’s see what we find out once we make it to the White House. If they’ve re-secured it like David said, they’ll probably have room for us to stay, at least for a while until we figure out where to go next.”

He squeezed her hand tighter. “Deshawn isn’t texting me back anymore.” Brian paused then continued, “He said his mom got bit and after that I didn’t hear from him again.”

“Did he know they have to restrain her?”

“He didn’t say.”

“His dad will know what to do. Don’t worry though. You can try to text him again later. There could be a problem with the cell phone towers.”

“Yeah. That’s probably it.” He turned away.

They reached 15
th
Street and stopped. It was close to dark and there were spotlights illuminating the grounds. Machine gun fire pierced the dusk and they heard shouting.