Zombie Anthology (8 page)

    
Joe imagined before he met Amy that he too would go insane himself, it was just a matter of time and if not from the wave's effects then from just the pain of being alone. He'd been extremely happy to find Amy on his doorstep. He believed she saved his life by showing up when she did.

    
Amy was happy in this place too. In a matter of days, Joe had moved from sleeping on the floor to sharing the bunk with her at her request. They needed each other desperately to feel alive and for the hope, they found in each other's eyes. Joe's arms wrapped around her, after they made love at night, gave Amy a feeling of safety and allowed her to think that things would really be okay again someday.

    
What Joe had said about most of the creatures leaving the town had proved true as well. As long as they were careful, she and Joe could venture just about anywhere they wanted to go in the town for supplies or just to get outside. They never encountered more of the things than the two of them well armed couldn't handle. Each other was all they needed to rebuild a little piece of the world they had lost to the wave.

    
The conversation with the Freedom had been brief before its orbit had taken it out of range but the survivors of Def Con had learned a lot during the brief communication. It wasn't the real Freedom Station they were speaking to, at least not the one known to the public. The station identified itself as the Freedom II, a military oriented, prototype based on the original Freedom's design that had still been under construction as the wave hit. Hank, the astronaut they spoke with, explained that the original Freedom had been destroyed by the wave and that only the Freedom II's experimental shielding had kept it functioning enough to save his crew and allow them the time they needed to make repairs. Still only himself and one other member of the station's eight-man crew were left alive though they were quickly running out of supplies and were down to one quarter power. Hank and Toni arranged a time to talk again when the station's orbit brought it back into range and traded downloads of information on what they knew of the post-wave world.

    
Sheena was beside herself. Now she could finally get the data she needed first hand to see if the wave's worst damage was over with. Nathanial, Geoff, Wade, and Troy were howling for a celebration. Only Ian seemed reserved.

    
"It's a lie,” he informed the crowd gathered in the control room. “There is no Freedom II.” His words cut the air of excitement and joy like a knife.

    
"How could you know that?” Sheena demanded as Nathanial clinched his fists and almost started to charge Ian at the sound of the cruel words the C.I.A. man had spoken.

    
"Lies and cover-ups used to be how I made a living on a day to day basis my dear or have you forgotten? I know more truth about what America has and hasn't done in the last five years than all of you put together. Trust me. There is no Freedom II nor will there ever be."

    
"You'll have to excuse me Ian if I don't take the word of a self-professed liar over what my own ears just heard,” Geoff remarked.

    
"I'm inclined to agree with Geoff,” Nathanial raged, “If Hank isn't on the Freedom II, where is he? Who is he? It just doesn't make sense for it not to be true, Ian."

    
Ian sighed as if confronting a group of schoolchildren. “He's one of them, the infected."

    
"Oh, now that's just bullshit!” Troy roared, “Those creatures up there can't tell their asses from a hole in the ground. Have you ever seen one, just one of them, try to climb the fence? They could you know if they could think to do it."

    
"Before we lost D.C., I received a packet of downloaded data on the infected from a doctor named Buchanan. Perhaps you have heard of him. He was the chief science advisor to the president. His reports in the packet disputed his earlier conclusions about the radiation and its effects. Yes, it turns some people into monsters, the majority actually, while some like us for whatever reason or reasons remain sane. Buchanan believed the possibility of a third group to emerge, a thinking, reasoning breed of those snarling killers up there,” Ian pointed at the ceiling.

    
"Fuck off, Ian,” Wade warned him. Ian ignored the mechanic and added, “You're all blinded by what you want to have heard just now, not what you actually did. Hope can be a powerful weapon if wielded correctly."

    
"Get out of here, Ian. Go back to your damn coffin in the
armoury
!” Sheena ordered.

    
"Just promise me one thing,” Ian said as he walked towards the control room's exit. “Do not give them our location until you've had more time to study the transmission and its origins."

    
"You're too late on that one Ian,” Toni called after him. “I already did."

    
Ian kept walking without acknowledging what Toni had said. He disappeared around the corner of the corridor.

    
"What if he's right?” Jeremy said and suddenly felt everyone's eyes on him. “I mean it. He's damn weird, I'll give you that but he was C.I.A. Toni, can't we trace the source of the transmission? Find out where it came from?"

    
"Yeah,” she answered quietly, “We can but it'll take a lot of work."

    
"It would go a lot faster if we had your help Nathanial,” Jeremy glanced at the computer tech. Nathanial shrugged. “Sure. Okay."

    
"In the meantime, I think all the rest of us have stuff to be working on, right?” Geoff suggested. “Dr. Leigh why don't you continue your study of the wave, the rest of you, suit up. We're going up top. There are about forty more of those things at the fence again and I for one want them gone."

    
Troy shielded his eyes as he stepped out of the shed onto the main grounds of the base. The cacophony of the maddened creatures washed over him like a tide. “Jeez, Geoff, where the hell did you learn how to count?"

    
Geoff stepped out behind him and followed Troy's gaze. There weren't forty creatures outside the fence. They numbered closer to a hundred or more. The heavy reinforced poles that held the fence in place swayed under the force of their struggle to get inside.

    
"Got some gas no one seems to be usin’ over in the garage,” Wade offered.

    
Within minutes, Wade had a jury-rigged hose set up running from the large fuel tanks inside the garage. Troy and Geoff helped him drag it out and cut it on.

    
"Wee-freakin'-Hah!” Troy bellowed as he held the hose's nozzle, spraying down the rows of packed creatures and the fence alike. “Anybody got a match?"

    
Wade shook his head holding a silver Zippo in his hand. He looked at it sadly. “This was my favorite lighter,” he said then flicked it lit, tossing it at the fence. Howls and screams rose up as a wave of blue flame burst into existence and swept through the ranks of the infected. Geoff had shut off the hose and the three of them stood in silence. Black smoke drifted upwards into the heavens and it was all Troy could do not to vomit from the overwhelming odor of burning flesh.

    
"I don't believe it,” Nathanial slumped over his computer screen. “What the hell does it mean?"

    
He and Toni had been able to trace the source of the Freedom II's message. It hadn't come from orbit at all but rather somewhere in South Carolina only a few hundred miles away from the complex.

    
"It means Ian was right.” Jeremy heard Toni sobbing. “Oh God,” she cried, “I am so sorry."

    
Jeremy took her in his arms. “Someone out there whether it's those creatures or not knows we're here now. They know we're alive and sane. Worse, they know how many of us there are."

    
Toni nestled her face deeper into his shoulder and wept openly. Strings of tears and spit wet Jeremy's shirt under her.

    
"What do we do now?” Nathanial asked.

    
"We get ready,” Jeremy gritted his teeth. “We get ready for whoever or whatever's coming."

    
Jeremy saw Toni to her quarters and got her settled, urging her to get some rest and calm down. Then it was time, he decided, to pay a visit to Ian's “coffin".

****

The doors of the lift opened onto the
armoury
level. Jeremy had never been to this part of the base before and was taken aback by the condition of the hallway. Unlike the rest of Def Con, this part of the complex hadn't been repaired since the battle fought here in the days after the wave. The lighting was poor as many of the lights were shot out or flickered badly casting eerie strobes along the metal walls. The walls themselves were scarred by some kind of explosion as if someone had set off a grenade in the passageway. Spent shell casings littered the floor as Jeremy made his way to the end of the hall. The entrance to the
armoury
was open. Ian emerged from an unnoticed side corridor behind Jeremy.

    
"How the mighty have fallen,” Ian said causing Jeremy to whirl around at the sound of his voice. “Calm down, young man. I’ not some monster come to end your life."

    
"Ian you were right about the Freedom II."

    
"I know,” Ian walked past Jeremy into the armory proper. “Would you care for some music? I find Wagner particularly relaxing in times like these."

    
"Ian, how did you know so quickly about the Freedom I mean?"

    
The former C.I.A. agent took a seat in a set up folding chair between the racks weapons that lined the walls of the vault like room. “Their shielding,” Ian picked up a cold cup of tea sitting beside the chair and sipped at it. “There was a project like what they described but it never got off the ground. The energy expenditure to generate the kind of field they mentioned was impossible. The project was scarped because of it."

    
Jeremy took a seat on the floor in front of Ian. “Why do you stay down here so much?"

    
Ian laughed. “I'm not immune to the radiation like the rest of you seem to be, Jeremy."

    
Jeremy's mouth dropped open.

    
"This is the most shielded part of the complex. I choose to stay here because I value my life. Even so, I am finding it harder each day to resist the urges rising inside of me. Very soon I think you may find yourself in a position where my disposal will become vital to your own survival.” Ian noticed Jeremy shift uncomfortably. “I assure you, you will have to do it. None of the others, not even our good doctor, even suspect that I am not well."

    
Ian paused and sat down his tea. “I don't have any magical answers about who the people claiming to be onboard the Freedom II might be. I'm not God, Jeremy. But whether they are looters, survivors like us, or reasoning versions of the creatures outside, they will be coming. Will they bring death or hope? I don't know. Personally, I believe hope died the second the wave touched our world."

    
"Will you help us get ready for them?” Jeremy asked.

    
"There's nothing I can do Jeremy. I'm certainly not about to go up top again and I don't think can really ask that of me. Geoff is the military expert. He can handle it."

    
"And that's it? That's all you have to offer?” Jeremy shook his head. “Don't you care about anyone?"

    
"Yes,” Ian answered, “I care about me and either way, I am dying."

    
Ian dismissed Jeremy with a curt “Good day” and picked up a book he had been reading opening a chapter marked with piece of ribbon. Jeremy didn't argue. He got to his feet and went in search of Geoff. Something had to be done and it looked like it was up to them to do it. His life and the world he knew had been taken from him once; he wasn't going to give up this place too without a fight.

    
"It can't be done,” Geoff slurred dropping the empty jug to the garage's floor. “This base was never designed to be a defensible position out here. It's a damn bomb shelter kid, a really high tech one, but still just a shelter."

    
Jeremy grabbed Geoff by the front his uniform and tried to yank him to his feet. As drunk as Geoff was he still easily shifted Jeremy's arm folding it painfully behind the younger man's back as he stood up. “Kid, it's all open space and fields up here. The fence is the only real obstacle to anyone who wants onto the grounds. If these things show up with the wielding torches to burn through the outer seal in the shed once they're inside the perimeter then maybe they deserve to have us for dinner.” Geoff released his hold on Jeremy and staggered out into the sunlight. “Jesus, kid, I just roasted a mob of people alive to save your ass. What more do you want from me?"

    
"Where are Troy and Wade? Maybe they'll listen to reason."

    
"Reason!” Geoff spun around to face Jeremy. “There ain't no reason left anymore kid. Just death, death and the dying."

    
Jeremy drew the.45 from the holster on his belt and
levelled
it at Geoff. “Do you want to die so badly Geoff,” he shook the gun, “I can make it happen, right here, right now."