Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World

by Dalton, Charlie

  But Tommy was wrong. There hadn’t been a single man standing to one side, but two.

  Before him stood a man Tommy was certain he’d never lay eyes upon again.

  Hawk.

  Only now, he didn’t wear his mask or his suit. He was bare and open to the entire world. He didn’t seem to care. Tommy broke apart from the others and approached his friend. He shook him by the hand first, unsure if he was real and not a ghost, and then brought him in for a hug.

  “I can’t believe you’re still alive!” he said.

  “I’m not,” Hawk said. “And neither are you.”

  Tommy burst into laughter. “True enough.”

  * * *

  Tommy couldn’t help but touch and squeeze Sam every chance he got. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. No one else came close. And the best part was, she was his. All mine.

  He couldn’t believe this gorgeous woman was his once more and he could enjoy her whenever he wanted—although, that wasn’t technically true as he would have ravished her right then and there if no one else was around. Alas, friends were in the vicinity.

  Sam wrapped up her and Hawk’s stories about where they’d been this whole time and how they managed to escape the Architect’s clutches. Their adventure was as exciting as Tommy’s had been. Sam gasped when he told their tale—with interjections from Emin, Guy, and Jimmy. Sam had always been a good audience.

  “What about you, Albert?” Sam said. “What’s your story?”

  “Hm?” Albert was away with the fairies again, staring at the wall behind them.

  “What’s your story? We heard everyone else’s.”

  “Oh. Nothing as exciting as your adventures.” And once again, his eyes focused on that wall.

  “He gets like this sometimes,” Tommy said. “His attention wanders.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Sam said. “Isn’t every man the same?”

  Albert didn’t reply. He was somewhere else entirely.

  “Can you feel him too?” Hawk said to Albert.

  Albert looked Hawk over. “Yes. But his signal is very weak. It’s like there’s a strong storm and the TV signal can’t get through.”

  “Not to me, it’s not,” Hawk said. “He’s getting stronger.”

  “How does he feel to you?”

  “A drumbeat.”

  “It’s a heartbeat to me too.”

  “It can’t be a heartbeat. The creatures I sense don’t have them. It’s more like the tide of the river, pulling in pulses. Like that.”

  Albert nodded. “Yes. That’s right. I always thought of it as a heartbeat before. It never seems to change, not even with activity. Running, jumping, sitting, working. It’s always the same steady pulse. Only now, I can barely feel this Architect. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it soon, otherwise, I’m going to lose him for good.”

  “Do what?”

  Tommy spread his hands. “There’s something we didn’t tell you about Albert—mainly because we don’t fully understand what it is he can do. He has power over people. That was how he knew you were out there. He can sense people, normal uninfected people, and he can get them to do things for him. Even kill them if he wants.”

  Sam’s smile was mischievous and enhanced the size of her wide mouth. “We have something to tell you too. Albert isn’t the only one who can do that. Hawk can do it too, but with zombies. They did experiments on him and installed a device that allows him to control them.”

  Tommy felt sorry for his friend. It was bad enough being one of the creatures, never mind having the ability to get inside their heads.

  “Wait. . .” Albert got to his feet and approached the wall. “He’s disappearing. . . Fading fast.”

  “No, he’s growing stronger. . .” Hawk said, hands placed on either side of his head as if his skull might crack at any moment.

  “I have to get inside his head. I need to get closer to him. Inside the city. Now.”

  Sam stood up. “We just came out of the city using an elevator. It’s the only one we know works.”

  Albert’s body shook and sweat rolled down his face. “It’s no good. He’s too weak. He’s slipping through my fingers.”

  “I have him,” Hawk said. “I feel him there, just beyond my reach.”

  Albert turned to him. “Reach out for him. He’ll be slippery, hard to hold. You want to hold him in your mind.”

  Hawk gritted his teeth, struggling to carry out the instructions.

  “You’re doing great,” Albert said. “Just focus.”

  “Maybe he got infected by one of his test zombies?” Emin said.

  “There’s some poetic justice for you,” Guy said.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam said. “He was pretty careful about keeping them separate.”

  “Then how did he turn into one of them?” Emin said.

  “He wouldn’t become a zombie if he didn’t want to,” Tommy said. He couldn’t explain it, but that statement rang with an element of truth. Nothing happened around the Architect that he didn’t want to happen.

  “Why would anybody want to be a zombie?” Jimmy said.

  “I don’t know, baby,” Emin said, hugging him close. “But it can’t be for anything good.”

  Hawk screamed and leaped back, hitting the ground hard, hands clutched over his head. He curled into a ball.

  “Pick him up!” Albert said. “We have to get out of here.”

  Sam rushed to Hawk’s side. “What’s going on?”

  “Your Architect,” Albert said. “He’s woken up. And if he can do this to Hawk. . . I’m afraid there’s little we can do to stop him.”

  The wall before them shuddered as something pummeled it on the other side. The Death Squad shared a look of grave concern.

  “Anyone else shitting themselves?” Guy said.

  “Run!” Tommy bellowed. “Get out of here! Run!”

  22.

  THE SURGEON

  Bang bang bang bang bang.

  The surgeon started and backed away from the operating table. “What’s that?”

  The Architect sat in the chair with his head facing forward and down, a white sheet spread around his face like a costume in a space opera movie. “Have you finished?”

  “Uh, no. Not yet.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter who it is. Finish the job.”

  But the surgeon couldn’t focus, not with that noise outside. “There must be something wrong if they’re banging on the door like that.”

  “Sometimes people panic. Don’t you panic. You’re trained to work under stress, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, sir.”

  “So, work.”

  The Architect sat up and looked the surgeon in the eye. “Listen to me. If you make a mistake, do you know who’s going to pay for it?”

  The surgeon gulped and nodded. “My family.”

  “That’s right. A single error or mistake, and they’re all gone. Do you understand?”

  The surgeon nodded. “Computer, turn the volume up, please. Full volume.”

  The music was deafening, but it blocked out the worst of the banging outside. A voice bellowed and joined in with the rock song’s chorus. Thunderbolts of lightning, very, very frightening.

  The surgeon wiped the sweat from his brow and concentrated on his work. The Architect hadn’t intended on having the implant placed inside his skull just yet, but when the radio message came over the airwaves, the Architect had the base locked down and instructed the surgeon that the time had come. Most of the tests had been carried out and the other subjects had survived the procedure, so there was no need to wait any longer.

  The surgeon breathed a sigh of relief and took a step back. “The hard work is done,” he said. “All I need to do now is reattach the skull.”

  “That won’t be necessary, doctor.”

  “But your brain will be exposed. It could suffer trauma and kill you—”

  The Architect tugged the bloodied sheet off and let it fall to the gro
und. “You see why your words amuse me?”

  “B-Because you’re already dead, sir.” The surgeon wiped the sweat off his bald dome and clutched the scalpel close. “Try not to push it too hard. It might take a little time to get used to.”

  The Architect reached out with both hands for something only he could see. Then he pulled it toward him. It might have been a bodyweight exercise if the Architect hadn’t been concentrating so hard.

  Outside the door, the guards resorted to electronic equipment, grinding at the thick metal millimeter by millimeter.

  “Shouldn’t we leave?” the surgeon said.

  “We will.” The Architect pointed at the main entrance. “But the room I need lies that way.”

  “What are you going to do about them? How will you get past?”

  “Reinforcements, of course.”

  The guards screamed. Stark bullets bounced off the wall from the rattle of gunfire. After two minutes, the screaming and firing stopped and the Architect slapped a hand on the controls, unlocking the door, drawing the curtain back to reveal a horrific scene.

  Fear shoved the surgeon’s heartrate to double time. “My God.”

  “I can assure you, God has nothing to do with it.”

  The guards lay dead and dying on the floor. The undead had struck them when they least expected it. The first to have fallen shifted position and got to their feet.

  “Twelve brave souls,” the Architect said. “Soon, you will number in the millions.”

  “Uh, sir?” the surgeon said. “What about my family?”

  The Architect turned to him. A forgotten thread. “They have already been released. They’re on the surface now, crossing the wall, and will be escorted to a safe location. I suggest you stay here for the next few hours and then take the elevator to the surface.” He placed a cold hand on the man’s shoulder. “You are a gifted surgeon and I do not like to waste those with gifts.”

  The surgeon didn’t know what to say, especially with the dead-eyed people staring at him like that. “Thank you, sir.”

  The Architect left and shut the door behind him. The surgeon, exhausted, collapsed. He began to weep, at what the future would hold, and the part he’d played in it.

  23.

  TOMMY

  Tommy slammed his foot on the gas and they zipped along the dusty road. He kept his eyes on the wall, fearing the worst. He didn’t know what was going to happen, only that something was going to happen, and the further he could get them from it, the better.

  Then, he saw it, and his gasp drew the attention of the others, who sat up in their seats and turned to see what’d caused his reaction.

  Tommy slammed the car into a lower gear and the car jolted as it sped up.

  What Tommy had seen—what they were all now looking at—was a solitary figure standing atop the wall. He didn’t hesitate to rush forward and throw himself over the side to certain death. It was an altogether familiar sight for Tommy and Hawk. They fell from a clear blue sky.

  Another figure appeared on the wall’s top and followed the first. A third creature soon followed, then a fourth, and a fifth, and then so many it was hard to count, like a springtime shower tapping on a tin roof, forming a meat cushion for the others to follow.

  “What are they doing?” Emin said breathlessly.

  “Escaping,” Hawk said. “And there’s only one reason they would even attempt anything like that. They’re under someone’s control. Someone very powerful.”

  The car was jammed with everybody inside it. Tommy felt the extra weight bearing down on the little engine with how it responded.

  “What happens now?” Sam said. “I thought the guards took care of the Architect?”

  “You should know better than that,” Tommy said. “The Architect always has another plan. He was never going quietly, never going to let them take him out. The only question is, what is his new plan and how can we stop it?”

  Hawk pressed a hand to his temple. “He’s more powerful than any undead I’ve ever felt before. Far more powerful than me.”

  No matter how much Hawk told them about the powers his new implant bestowed upon him, Tommy found it difficult to get his head around it. You were either human or zombie or a Walker in-between. Now, Hawk occupied a sphere only he belonged to—at least, that had been true until less than an hour ago.

  A thought occurred to him.

  “Do you think that is what the Architect was working towards this whole time?” he said. “Not a cure-all, but a way to harness this power over the undead?”

  “Maybe,” Hawk said. “They seemed in a rush to give me the implant. And they did say that I was a rare test subject, that there weren’t many Walkers out there for them to operate on. There might be some truth to that.”

  “Can you tell us anything about him, Hawk?” Guy said. “About the Architect that we don’t already know? What he’s doing, how he’s supposed to defeat us. What his plan is?”

  “Only he knows what his plans are,” Sam said. “Even those in the research center didn’t know what they were working towards. But judging by his actions, we can guess he’s not trying to create world peace.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Albert said. “Things that appear evil to us can look starkly like peace to someone else. It depends on your perspective.”

  Tommy locked eyes on the man via the rearview mirror. “He spread a virus that turns people into mindless zombies. I don’t think that is an act of peace.”

  “As I said,” Albert said, not shying away from the mirror, “it depends on your perspective.”

  Thump.

  Even from the five miles they’d managed to drive, they heard that heavy thud from beyond the wall as something on the other side smashed into it.

  Thump thump.

  “Tommy?” Sam said, more than a hint of fear edging her words. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know. Hawk?”

  “It’s him,” Hawk said, a shiver in his voice. “It’s the Architect.”

  A loud wiiiiiing noise was punctuated with an almighty crash as the wall exploded and countless tons of concrete rained down from a thick dust cloud. An object shifted forward into the light, sunlight blinking off its surface as it crushed the undead corpses too slow to get out of its way. Twenty feet wide and twenty feet high, it was a perfect silver sphere.

  “What is that?” Sam said.

  Tommy couldn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror. “Hawk?”

  Hawk shut his eyes and focused. “It’s him. He’s enclosed in some kind of cocoon, a large device that provides him with a protective shield.”

  “It’s a weapon?” Tommy said.

  “No. The weapon is on the inside.”

  “I’ve seen such things before.” Even Albert looked shocked. “During my time incarcerated inside the base, the scientists developed all kinds of incredible weapons. Some for offensive purposes, others for defense. You have to remember that they were working on weaponry that wouldn’t become known to the general public until twenty-five years or more in the future. Sometimes never. We even had weapons so powerful, developed decades ago, that we never unleashed upon the world. They were just too dangerous. That’s one I recognize. We called it the Sphere.”

  “What does it do?” Sam said.

  “Nothing. It’s a protective ball made from a new type of metal we created. Stronger and lighter than anything found naturally on Earth, and virtually indestructible. At least, it was. The weapons you have in the trunk are about the only thing that can get through its protective armor.”

  “This is insane,” Guy said. “We might as well be battling aliens from another planet.”

  “An incorrect, but useful analogy,” Albert said. “The only way to destroy this weapon is with the weapons we took from my base.”

  “Hoorah,” Tommy said flatly.

  Hawk shook his head. “If we’re going to open fire on him, we need to distract him first. He’ll be moving too fast to get a clear lock.”
/>   “It can’t be that simple,” Sam said. “With the Architect, it never is.”

  “We have certain advantages,” Albert said. “He doesn’t know about me. He never wanted Hawk to escape. He doesn’t know we have these futuristic weapons.”

  “Anything that the Architect doesn’t know about is something we should take advantage of,” Tommy said. “But we have to be careful about when and how we use them.”

  “It’s not as simple as you think,” Hawk said. “He also has control of an undead army. I doubt we could get close enough to reach him and inflict any serious harm. The zombies are at his beck and call, and with them, he might well be unstoppable.”

  “We need to know where he’s heading,” Tommy said. “Any ideas?”

  “South,” Hawk said. “That’s where the Sphere and the army are heading.”

  “What’s south of here?” Albert said.

  “San Antonio.” Tommy’s knuckles turned white around the steering wheel. After all the trouble they’d suffered there, it was about the last place he wanted to go. “Can you control the Architect? He is undead now.”

  “No,” Hawk said. “He’s much too powerful for that. Maybe I can influence him, but nothing more. I don’t understand how he could be so powerful by himself. Maybe it’s an advanced device? I don’t know.”

  “Is there a map back there?” Tommy said.

  They scrabbled amongst the papers on the floor.

  “I’ve got it,” Emin said.

  “Give it to Hawk,” Tommy said. “Track him, follow him to wherever he’s going. If he’s following us, I want to know. If he’s heading for a city somewhere else, I want to know that too. Either way, we have to be ready for when he makes his intentions clear.”

  “This is the Architect,” Sam said. “His intentions are never clear.”

  Tommy shifted gears and turned the steering wheel, taking highway 35 to San Antonio. “We might get a bit of a frosty welcome in San Antonio. I’m going to tell you guys a story about what happened to us there and how it might soon impact our goals.”