War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) (24 page)

“The Kingston fire department has sent two trucks, Havilland and Millbrook have sent one each. Unfortunately, not only is the facility now under a Class 1 quarantine, we only have a Millbrook sheriff’s deputy and a single trooper on site. I have three more troopers heading in, but I need permission for anything more.”

“Yes, fine. Send what we have available, but keep everyone back until you hear from me,” Pemberton said, hanging up abruptly. He made a call to his boss, Major Billups, who called his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Parks, who called the CDC in Atlanta, who called the New York CDC office, only to get a recording. Thus began a forty six minute pause in the chain of command.

Eventually, a half mile from the Weston facility gates, four fire trucks, five ambulances, three state police cruisers, and four local police cruisers sat parked with their lights blasting the rainy evening waiting for the word
go
. The minutes ticked by and, as each passed, the thirty one employees stuck in the first floor break room grew edgier and edgier. First they fidgeted or complained of headaches, then, when the migraines set in, they lay on the ground clutching their heads and groaning.

When the phone rang, Heines snarled at it through twisted lips and smashed it with the butt of his gun. The snarl felt good. Venting his anger and hate felt really good. Inside him was a nasty, evil feeling that hurting someone would feel even better. He was stuck on the idea that he could transfer his pain to someone else with his fists or with his teeth. It was an idea he fought for some time, but at 6:32 PM he’d had enough of being good, of waiting for the authorities to get their shit together, of living in pain. He was dying of
the disease
as everyone in the room had taken to calling it and he was fucking tired of it.

“I have to do something,” Heines said. He tried to stand but his injured leg wouldn’t hold his weight. “Fuck!” he raged. “What are we going to do? They’re keeping us stuck in this room for no reason except to maybe watch us die. I bet they’re laughing right now.”

Everyone knew who
they
were and looked up at the ceiling. “They’re laughing because they have the cure,”
Jodi
Schmelling said.

Morgan no longer craved cigarettes; they were a pale vice in comparison to what she really wanted. “We should go get it.” She wasn’t really thinking about a cure, she was thinking how much she needed to wet her mouth with blood.

Von Braun’s threat had effectively ended the crisis over torturing Anna Holloway. The group on the fourth floor was in too weak a position not to take his threat seriously and all thoughts of a fight between Chuck and Deckard evaporated in a blink.

“We’re going to need more of your smarts,” Deck said to Thuy after he’d toured the floor, looking for ways the infected people could get at them. There was a gaping hole in their defenses and it was a wonder it hadn’t been exploited before.

“I’m using them at the moment,” Thuy replied. She had just got off the phone after a lengthy conversation with Jaimee Burke. Thuy had quizzed her in the same manner as she had her father only to discover the young girl was of little help. Jaimee wasn’t very bright to begin with and her mental faculties had deteriorated over the last two hours. She was still far better off than any of the other infected persons but there was a slight change that Thuy had discerned.

“You’re smart, Deck,” Thuy went on. “Whatever you need I’m sure you can figure it out. And there are other scientists running around here, some of them are smart, too.”

“That’s just it,” Deck said. “They are running around
doing
things while you’re holed up in your office. It almost seems like you’re hiding.”

Thuy sat back with arms folded and stared hard at Deckard. “It’s called delegation. You job is security. I expect you to secure the place. I am a scientist. My job is to make hypotheses, test my hypotheses and, if possible, discover facts. What everyone else is doing is up to them. It’s safe to say that I’m no longer in charge.”

“If you’re not in charge then nobody is and we’re screwed.”

“Then you be in charge,” Thuy said. “You’re all big and manly. They’ll listen to you.”

Deck went to the glass wall and leaned back against it. He found himself smiling at her. “Two compliments in one conversation. I feel like I’m getting a pat on the head and a push in the back. You must really want me to leave.”

“I am busy…”

“Stop it,” Deck growled. “The only reason you’re not in charge is because you’ve given up. Milner said what he said and you just folded. I’d happily be in charge but I’m
just
security in your eyes and in theirs. If there’s killing to do, everyone will turn to me, but in the meantime, I’m being treated like the help.”

“And there’s something you need?” Thuy wasn’t about to address how Deck was being treated. There was definitely a pecking order in academia. PH.Ds lauded their degrees and looked down their noses at those with only a master's degree, and rarely conversed with anyone who had only a bachelor’s. It became ingrained in school and people forgot that although it was nice to get a degree, it was even better to actually do something with it.

“I need you in charge,” Deck said. “Right now we have mayhem and bickering. If Von Braun can find a way through the doors we’ll be dead.”

“What about the police?”

Deck shook his head as he answered, “They’re waiting for the CDC to give them clearance to come in and no one knows where the CDC is.”

“Then it’s just us for the moment.” Thuy pushed back from her desk and stood. “Show me the problem.” Deck opened the door for her and the sounds of the infected people out in the stairwell, struck her ears. Their groans and growls were muted by the doors but their ceaseless banging echoed throughout the floor. It was haunting and unnerving.

Thuy did her best to ignore it as she followed Deck. “It’s the elevator,” he said. “There’s very little stopping Von Braun from just turning the control key. He could be up here in thirty seconds with a car full of zombies.”

She raised an eyebrow at the word "zombie", but let it pass. “And we can’t lock the doors ourselves.” It was a statement. The outer elevator doors were flat, there was no obvious way to lock them or hold them in a closed position. She turned to Deck. “What about tools? There were workmen all over this place yesterday.”

“They finished up here yesterday, too. Right now we don’t even have a screw driver.”

A number of scientists had followed them and Riggs was with them. “That’s not exactly true,” he said. “We can pry open the doors and I was thinking that maybe if we could run a line over from the gas supply, we could cut one of the cables.”

“Show me,” Thuy said, stepping back.

Riggs had armed himself with a sliver of metal he had pried from the inside of one of the centrifuges. It looked like a prison shiv. He stuck the edge in the crack of the doors and worked them just far enough apart so that he and Deck could get their fingers in. The two men hauled back on the doors until the elevator shaft sat like a black pit before them.

Thuy stepped forward and peered in at the cables. She then looked back at Riggs and saw a man whom she barely recognized. The stress had given him a ragged appearance. His sandy blond hair stuck up at odd angles and his eyes were very round as if he was walking around in a state of constant surprise.

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” she told him. “We have propane, yes, however we don’t have pure oxygen, and even if we did we don’t have any way to mix them properly. Riggs, don't you realize we’re talking about a fifteen hundred degree temperature difference using only room air compared to pure oxygen. Propane alone won’t be able to cut those cables.”

Riggs was shaking his head with jerky little snaps of his neck. “But…but there’s O2 on the second floor. If we can run a new line up…”

Thuy touched his arm and tried to smile away his fears. “No. We can’t get to the second floor and even if we could there’s no telling how the Com-cells are spreading. If it’s in the air we risk getting contaminated.”

“We need to do something,” Anna said. “It wouldn’t hurt to try using the propane.” A few of the other scientists were nodding as were Dr. Wilson and Chuck. Deck was grim-faced and shook his head at Thuy.

She caught his meaning. If she didn’t assume command they would try every bad idea under the sun until they ran out of time and Von Braun attacked. “No,” Thuy said. “I will fix the elevator so it doesn't run. The rest of you need to split up into three teams. Each team will guard a staircase. Deckard, Mr. Singleton, and Dr. Riggs will be the captains. They will choose who’s on their teams. It’ll be like in school.”

“So that means I’ll be picked last,” one of the smaller scientists said with a smile. She wasn’t quite five feet in height and had the bones of a bird.

“I’d rather not be picked at all,” Stephanie said. “But I also don’t want to get turned into one of
them
.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Singleton,” Thuy said to Chuck. “You get first pick.”

As they divided into groups, she turned away to stare into the elevator shaft. She squinted into the dark until a pale light streamed from behind her to light up the shadows. It was Anna holding up her cell phone.

“I’ll be picked last, if I’m picked at all,” she explained.

“Do you blame them?” Thuy asked.

“Yeah, a little. I’m in the same boat as the rest of you. If Von Braun makes it up here it won’t be like I’m immune or anything.” The light dimmed and Anna touched the surface of her cell phone to brighten it again. She saw Thuy’s wide eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m allowed to have it. That idiot Deckard gave it back to me. He said:
It’d be stealing if I kept it
. He’s like a pretend cop. I know he’s hoping I use it to call my contact or whatever.”

“Seems smart to me,” Thuy replied.

“Yeah, except I don’t have a ‘contact’ and if I did I wouldn’t be stupid enough to use my own phone to call him. That’s the problem with Deckard playing cop. Whatever evidence he comes up with will be illegally obtained and not admissible in court.”

“Clearly you would have made a better a lawyer than a scientist,” Thuy said, acidly.

“Well, one way or another we’ll all be looking for a new career tomorrow…if we live to tomorrow. That’s why I’m helping you. I admit I’m not a fighter and most of your people aren’t nearly as brilliant as they’d like to believe.

“And you are?” Thuy asked. When Anna smiled, suggesting she was, Thuy said, “Show me. How do we stop the elevator from coming up here?”

The blonde swung her hair across her left shoulder and then eased closer to the shaft, shining her cell phone light up and down the walls. After a few moments she said, “We can cut the cable. We’d first have to fashion a saw from metal…”

Thuy spoke over her, “Von Braun is already late carrying out his attack. It could happen any minute now. Meaning we don’t have time to be fashioning tools like a caveman.”

Anna’s smile disappeared and her lips drooped at the edges, making her look like fish. “I don’t know…maybe we could set a beam or something at an angle down in the shaft that would block the elevator from...”

“Do you see any spare beams lying around?”

Now Anna glared. “So, you’re just trying to be vengeful? Figure it out yourself.”

She turned to leave but Thuy grabbed her arm. “I have already figured it out, I was just trying to see if you had a better idea. Dr. Riggs, may I borrow your knife, please?”

Slowly, Riggs brought it out and was even slower handing it over. “That’s my only weapon.” He was like a child being asked to give up a favorite toy.

“I need it to hold the elevator. You understand.” It didn’t look like he understood. It looked like he had been suddenly rendered impotent. To Anna she said, “Point your light across from us. See those concrete rings sitting one on top of each other? Those are the counter weights for the elevator car. When the elevator comes up, those go down. What I need you to do is wedge this knife right up against the rail underneath them.”

“How? How am I going to reach that far?”

Thuy squinted into the shaft as if expecting to see something more than darkness. She then shrugged and answered, “You climb.”

Anna looked down; the shaft was midnight black. It could’ve been ten feet deep or ten thousand, there was no way of telling. She backed into Thuy’s hand. “No,” Thuy said, holding her there just inches from the edge. “You’ve admitted you can’t fight and you’ve proven you aren’t up to snuff when it comes to problem solving. I hope you can contribute to our dire cause with the simple act of climbing, something any second grader could do. It won’t be that difficult. There are a couple of handholds, and you can put your feet on that little pipe.”

A
fter a long moment, when Anna realized Thuy wasn’t really giving her a choice, she said, “Alright. I’ll do it, but just to show you that I’m on your side.” She handed over the phone and accepted the knife, which she stuffed down the front of her blouse where her full breasts and her push-up bra held it in place.

She reached out for the first hold with the cell phone light full on her shaking hand. It almost seemed like Thuy was mocking her by showing each hold and then pointing out how frightened she was by letting the light linger on her quivering hands. She was dreadfully slow. Anna gripped every hold as though she was never planning on letting go. It made her palms slippery, which only added to her fright.

Finally, she made it to the counter-weight at the back of the shaft. “Just stick it up there?” she asked.

“Yes,” Thuy replied. “Wedge it up as far as it will go and hurry. If the elevator starts now…”

Anna knew. She shoved the hunk of metal as far up as it would go and then hammered on it with the palm of her hand. When it wouldn't go any further she said, “I did it. That thing is stuck up there good.”

“Problem solved,” Thuy said. “The potential energy of the weights shouldn't be able to overcome the friction generated by the knife against the rail. We should be safe now. You can come on back.” Thuy guided her with the light until Anna reached the first corner then unexpectedly she turned the cell phone off.

“Hey!” Anna froze in place.

“Before you come back, I need to know what you did,” Thuy whispered. “What did you do to the Com-cells?”

“Th-This isn’t f-funny,” Anna stuttered.

Thuy was secretly pleased at the obvious fear. “What you did to the Com-cells wasn’t funny either. Lives are at stake here, Anna, and more importantly to you, at least, is that your life is now at stake.”

“I-I didn’t do anything,” Anna insisted. “Please, you have to believe me.”

“I don’t,” Thuy said, through clenched teeth. Standing, she reached up and touched a small lever at the top of the elevator door. It held the doors open when maintenance needed to do repairs. “I’m going to shut the doors now and it’s going to get very dark. You won’t be able to see where the handholds are and eventually you’ll grow tired and fall.”

“Dr. Lee, please,” Anna begged.

“I’ll open the door only when you tell me what you did.”

Anna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything. But…if…if you want me to say I spied then ok I’ll say it. I spied on your research and sent coded messages on to a professor at Cornell. Ok? That’s all I did. I didn’t do anything to the Com-cells. I swear.”

Thuy had expected just this: admitting to a crime that she had already been fingered for. “I’ll be waiting just outside when you’re ready. I wouldn’t be too long if I was you.”