Zompoc Survivor: Odyssey (14 page)

“No, ma’am,” I said as I shook her hand. “That part I’m pretty sure of. This is a Cold War era continuity of government bunker. And, it’s nice to meet you Madam President.”

Chapter 7

Theories & Revelations

~ People love conspiracy theories. ~ Neil Armstrong

“How do you know that?” President Morris demanded as ten gun barrels zeroed in on me.

“It’s kind of obvious,” I said, secretly pleased with myself. Okay, maybe not so secretly pleased, but no one was asking and I wasn’t telling. “I mean, you’re in a secret government bunker, surrounded by athletic looking young men and women armed with FN P90s. They’re either with the Secret Service or Stargate Command. Since the SGC isn’t real, I’m going with Secret Service. And who else would be holed up in a secret COG bunker with a detail of Secret Service agents? So, where were you on the line of succession?”

“Secretary of the Interior. You’re remarkably well informed, Mister…?” Morris left the question hanging. Something about the way she asked it made me wonder if she really needed me to give her the answer.

“Stewart,” I said. “My name’s Dave Stewart.”

“Did you by chance write Operation: Terror?” Morris asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “And the Frankenstein Code. You’ve read my books?”

“Not by choice,” she said. “My predecessor’s analysts describe your work as juvenile, needlessly violent and written at a fifth grade reading level. They also wanted you detained indefinitely for treason.”

“Oh,” I said as my ego deflated. Talk about tough critics.

“Damn, do you need some ice for that burn?” Amy asked with a mocking wince.

“My predecessor’s analysts were idiots,” she went on. “They had a tendency to see enemies where there were none. Fortunately, the President was smart enough to know when not to listen to them.”

“The President even knew who I was?” I said. “I’m not sure I
want
to know what he thought.”

“He thought your books were harmless enough,” she said with a small smile. “But, your writing career aside, how did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I was just asked to pick up some info at an old COG base about Operation: Home Shield.”

“By whom?”

“Colonel Schafer, with US SOCOM,” I said. Morris frowned and tilted her head.

“And you talked to him recently?” she asked.

“Last night.”

“Come with me,” she said after a moment, then turned and headed through a door behind her. I followed her into what looked like a command center. The wall to my left was covered with maps pinned to bulletin boards, while the right side of the room was occupied by a bank of radios, some of them antiques and some copies of the Spitfire I’d left on my bike. In the center of the room was a table with four people at laptops, two to a side. Every eye turned to us when we came in, and one of the people at the table stood and approached us.

“Ma’am, Special Agent Shepherd has the intru-” she stopped abruptly when she caught site of Amy and me. “The bikes are in the garage, ma’am.”

“Good, Simone. Reactivate Colonel Schafer’s file. Mr. Stewart tells me he’s alive.”

“Madam President, with all due respect,” Simone said with a sidelong glance at me, “FOB Oscar was a total loss. Sikes left the soldiers there to die.”

“I helped Schafer get out along with Captain Adams’ team.”

Simone turned to Morris. “Is he really..?” She nodded, and Simone turned back to me with a speculative look. “You’ve been declared dead twice. Between you and Carson, it’s like Whack-a-Mole. Okay, we’ll reactivate Schafer and Karma One.”

“President Morris,” I said, “before we go any further, I have to ask you something. Where is the alpha zombie?” The room went quiet, and again, every eye focused on us.

“Mister Stewart, there are no zombies here,” Morris said smoothly.

“Bullshit,” Amy said. “We can feel it.” That got a few gasps. Morris looked at Amy and stepped up to her.

“What do you mean you can feel it?” she asked in a voice that even Amy backed down from.

“Amy and I can both tell when there are zombies around,” I interjected. “Especially the alpha zombies, the ones the CDC labeled Patient Zeros. Tends to make us a little cranky.” Morris’s face hardened as I spoke, and her eyes narrowed.

“Mr. Stewart, you seem to know an awful lot about these zombies. Far more, in fact, than you ought to.”

“Of course I know a lot about them!” I said. “I’ve killed enough of them. And not just your run of the mill stage one and stage two cases. We’ve killed some infected that would make you lose your lunch. You think there are just three kinds? Hell no. There are Screamers, Burners, Blobs and last but certainly not least, there are the Trolls.”

“Ogres,” Amy said.

“Whatever. The point is we’ve been out there for the past two weeks fighting them. We
know
our infected, maybe better than you do. We can feel them, and we can kill them like nobody’s business. And we can both feel the alpha zombie you have locked away in here.”

“If there was an…alpha zombie in here, you wouldn’t be cleared to know about it,” Morris said. “Furthermore, if you did have that kind of-” she stopped as the door on the other side of the room opened and a woman in a lab coat burst into the room.

“Madam President, she’s awake,” the woman said. Her gaze fell on us before she continued “And she’s talking.”

“McGregor,” Morris said crisply, “Take these two to the dining room and keep an eye on them. Phillips, Trowbridge, you’re with me.” She followed the doctor and McGregor, an older looking agent with a little silver in his close cropped black hair, led us out the same door his boss had exited through, but instead of turning left in her footsteps, he led us to the right, past two more hallways until we came to a set of double doors that led into an old cafeteria. He pointed to a round table that was surrounded by orange and green plastic chairs. Amy and I sat. Most of the lights were off, save for those over the door and in the kitchen area, leaving the room dimly lit except for a couple of pools of light.

“Did we miss lunch?” Amy asked after a couple of minutes. McGregor nodded and made an affirmative sounding noise. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, then leaned back in her chair. “So, how did this lady end up president?” she asked after a few moments.

“She’s further up the line of succession than Shaw,” I said. “Homeland Security is the newest addition to the chain, so the Secretary of pretty much anything else would outrank him. Or, in this case, the Secretary of Everything Else.”

“You lost me,” she said.

“It’s something my granddad used to say. He was a Forest Ranger for a few years, and he used to joke that he worked for the Department of Everything Else, because the Department of the Interior covered so many things.” Seconds later, the doctor poked her head in.

“Come with me,” she said. We got up and followed, wondering if someone had started rationing words or something. The doctor type led us back down the hallway, past several doors until we came to one on the right marked “Infirmary.” With every step we took, the feel at the back of my head got stronger, until my heart was pounding in my chest and my fists were clenched at my sides. By the time she pushed the door open, I was ready to rip someone’s head off.

The first thing I saw was the alpha zombie, or what was left of it. Its legs and arms had been removed just above the elbows and knees. Before death, she had been blonde, and her face and hair seemed very well preserved by comparison to the rest of her. She was still gaunt and pale, but she didn’t have the desiccated, slightly rotted look the last alpha I’d seen had. They had her in a metal box that had a clear cover on it with holes drilled in it. Her display case was tilted so that it was almost upright, giving her a view of the room, and vice versa.

“So, are these the people you were talking about?” Morris asked. The corpse in the box looked at us and nodded, her face splitting into a sickly sweet smile.

“Yes, the Nephilim!” the alpha cooed. She let out a giggle that sent ice cold claws down my spine. “Thank you, Maddie.”

“Why did you want to see them?” Morris asked.

“Because the closer they are to me, the stronger I get. In a few minutes, I’ll be able to get out of this box and kill every last one of you.” She looked expectantly at the Secret Service members in the room, then shook her head. “Well, aren’t you going to kill them? It’s the only way to stop me.” Morris shook her head.

“No, Sarah, we’re not. I kept my end of the bargain. It’s time for you to keep yours. Tell me what you know about them.”

“Well, the scruffy looking little primate is the Survivor. He’s been a bad little monkey. The little girl with him…she’s his apprentice, his protégé if you will. We haven’t decided what to call her yet.” Beside me, Amy bristled, but she kept her mouth shut when I put an arm out in front of her.

“Were they in Springfield?” Morris asked pointedly.

“The Survivor was,” zombie Sarah said with a pout. “He hurt poor Deacon.”

“What about Kansas City?”

“Oh, they were both in Kansas City. They killed so many of the Necromancer’s children. He’s quite the artist, you know. Such a waste. Are you sure you won’t shoot just one of them for me?”

“Are there other kinds of infected?” Morris asked.

“Oh yes, Maddie,” the alpha said. “More than we could ever hope for. Even at our height, we never dreamed that we had such potential. The sad thing is, you pathetic little monkeys perfected the Asura
by mistake
!” The last two words turned into a bitter sounding bark.

“What do you mean?” Morris demanded, her face a little pale now.

“I mean you awakened the Asura, Maddie,” the dead woman said, her voice low and frosty, “Something that your ancestors never wanted to see the light of day again. You woke it up, and then you started trying to tamper with it. You tried to tame something bigger than you, and you forgot that sometimes the unknown is hidden for a reason. And now…now we’re killing you. We’re killing you better than we ever did before, and you made it all possible.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Morris said. “Dr. Parsons, put her back in the box.” Parsons, the woman who had brought us, nodded and went to the gurney that supported Sarah. Morris gestured for us to follow her and went across the hall to an office. She led us past the outer room to a second office, this one with a faded Presidential Seal painted on the wall behind the broad, wood desk. A carpet had been laid out on the concrete floor and some fairly new couches and chairs had been moved in, but none of them seemed to belong, either in the room or with each other. She motioned to a pair of chairs, then moved to the love seat. As she sat, she pulled an ashtray from the center of the old wooden coffee table toward her and reached into the right breast pocket of her coveralls to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Madam President,” I started, but she waved me to silence as she lit up and took a deep drag.

“Ugh,” she muttered. “I’m down to menthols. I should have started with those. But I guess this will make it easier to quit.” The smoke went almost straight up and disappeared into one of the vents overhead, which kept the worst of the smoke from Amy and me. After a couple more puffs, she turned to us. “Please, Mr. Stewart, call me Madeline, or Miss Morris if you have to be formal.”

“So, where did you dig her up?” Amy asked, pointing back toward the door with her thumb.

“Washington,” Morris said. “Her name is…
was
Sarah Bach. She was a state representative in Texas. Before she turned into
that
, she was one of the most decent human beings I’d ever met. Raised her kids on her own after her husband died in Iraq in ’04, got her real estate license, started her own business, even sang in her church choir. The sad thing is, I don’t even know why she was in Washington when the outbreak started. But I’m curious. You weren’t surprised when she called you Nephilim. I take it you’ve been called that before.”

“The alpha zombie in Kansas City said it was one of many names that ‘people like me’ had been called through the years. But Nephilim are supposed to be the offspring of fallen angels who married human women.”

“Genesis 6:4,” Morris said somberly. “The Nephilim were in the Earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”

“My parents were hardly fallen angels, and I’m not exactly mighty,” I said.

“But you can tell when alpha zombies are nearby. And I think people like you scare them a little. I definitely want Dr. Parsons to take some blood samples from you.”

“Great,” Amy muttered. “More needles.”

“Someone else has taken blood samples?” Morris asked.

“A doctor we know who was researching the Asura virus,” I said. “So, Mad-…Miss Morris, why trust us now?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

“Because until ten minutes ago we were completely out of our depth. Do you know how many people I have working for me, aside from the fifteen people you saw when you arrived? None. I’m the president of a little bunker with a staff of ten Secret Service members, four analysts from Air Force One and one person with a doctorate in virology. That’s why I haven’t declared myself. Shaw would stop at nothing to kill me if he knew I was still alive.”