Zombie Rules (Book 7): The Fifteens

by Achord, David

Flash did not know what the voices meant. The clouds enveloped him now. He felt the warmth of sleep embracing him and he gladly accepted it. Being eaten by zeds wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Flash? Are you awake, buddy?”

  Flash opened his eyes. Things were still blurry, but when they came into focus, he saw Slim staring down at him.

  “I thought you were a zed,” Flash said. “Where am I?”

  Slim stared in surprise. “You’re in the infirmary.” He then yelled over his shoulder. “Doc, he’s awake!”

  Within seconds, the face of Doctor Salisbury appeared. Aside from his physical exam when he first came to Mount Weather, Flash and Doctor Salisbury never spoke other than an occasional hello when they passed each other in the hall.

  “You were in rough shape when Slim carried you in here,” she said. “Severely dehydrated, numerous abrasions and contusions, but most importantly, this.” She pointed down at his arm. He looked to see a distinctive bite mark. It was only then that he saw each wrist was shackled to the respective bed railing.

  “You’ve been semiconscious for the last twenty-four hours and you haven’t turned, so I guess the famous Zach-Vax is working. It is a zed bite, is it not?”

  Flash tried to speak, but his throat was too dry. Doctor Salisbury nodded to Slim, who filled a glass of water from a pitcher and held Flash’s head up so he could drink.

  “Slow sips, buddy,” he said. “Hey, Doc, can I take the shackles off?”

  She scrutinized Flash for several seconds before answering. “I believe it would be okay.”

  Slim hurriedly unlocked the shackles, all the while giving Flash a big grin. “You’re going to be alright now, buddy. I’ve been nursing you the whole time. Just ask Doc.”

  “He certainly has, and now that you know your friend is okay, perhaps you should consider going to take a shower and changing into some clean clothes, hmm?”

  Doctor Salisbury’s tone made it clear to Slim he did not have a choice in the matter. Slim frowned, but only for a moment and then gave his usual grin.

  “I’ll be back in less than thirty minutes, buddy,” he said.

  “Stop by the cafeteria and fix him a meal. I’m sure he’s famished,” Doctor Salisbury said.

  “You got it, Doc.”

  She busied herself with listening to Flash’s breathing with a stethoscope and then took his blood pressure.

  “You’ve not answered my question,” she said as she began taking the IV line out of his arm.

  “Yes, ma’am, it was a zed bite,” Flash admitted and gestured at his upper shoulder. “That was a gunshot.”

  “I need you to give me a list of symptoms and an associated timeline,” she ordered.

  “Um, when I got bit, I couldn’t exactly tell you my symptoms. Things were pretty intense, and I was fighting for my life. I probably had a lot of adrenalin coursing through me. I got away and I guess about ten or twenty minutes later I was thirsty and shaking uncontrollably. That’s the effects of the adrenalin dump, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Go on.”

  “Well, all I had available to me was my camelback of water, so I rinsed and cleaned it as best that I could. Our vehicle was stolen, but I found a bike somewhere.” Flash scratched his head in thought. “Danged if I know where I found it, but that’s how I got back home.

  “I guess the first symptom came maybe an hour later. I got a bad headache and I was sweating profusely. I don’t know if it was because of the bite or because it was hot outside and I was pedaling on that bike as hard as I could. I drank my water and after a couple of hours, I found a place to hole up. My head was pounding, and I was exhausted. I fell asleep at one point. The sun was going down when I had stopped and when I woke up, it was just before dawn. So, I guess I slept for like twelve hours. When I woke up, I was thirsty, hungry, and my head still hurt a little, but not as much. I biked most of the day, found a place to sleep for the night, and when the sun came up, started biking again. I think it took me three days to get back here, but I’m not certain.”

  “Any other symptoms?” she asked.

  “Um, yeah. There toward the end I was hallucinating. Maybe it was because of a lack of food and water, or maybe it was a zed thing. I don’t know.”

  Doctor Salisbury stared at him a long moment before speaking. “You need to eat and rehydrate yourself. And, I would strongly advise you take a long hot shower as well and then get some sleep.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Flash said.

  “Where are your teammates?” she asked.

  “Dead,” Flash muttered.

  She stared a moment longer. “You will undergo a debriefing, probably in the morning immediately after breakfast.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I expect so,” Flash said.

  “We do not have a large representation of African Americans in the Mount Weather community. They’re mostly good people, but racism can be subtle. Watch what you say in that debriefing.”

  Before Flash could respond, she walked out of the room. Flash got out of the bed with difficulty and went to the restroom. Slim returned as he was washing his hands. He had a tray of food and set it on the table beside the bed.

  “Porkchops, scalloped potatoes, and lima beans. I hope you’re hungry,” he said.

  “I’m famished,” Flash replied.

  Slim sat with him while he ate and refilled his glass with water twice. When Flash could eat no more, he sat back and accidentally belched. Slim laughed.

  “That good, huh?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Flash said.

  “Are you still hungry? I can go get you another plate,” Slim said.

  “No, I’m good. Thanks anyway.”

  Flash had been sitting upright in the bed, but now leaned back and rubbed his belly. His thoughts drifted back to Fort Eustice and how he watched his two friends die. Tears started running down his cheeks. He stifled a sob and quickly wiped his face. Slim grabbed one of his hands and squeezed tightly.

  “It’s alright, buddy. You’re home now.”

  “Thanks, man,” Flash whimpered. After a few minutes, Flash rubbed his eyes and sat up.

  “Have I missed anything?” Flash asked.

  “Well, let’s see. They had the trial and found Clay guilty. Zach finally kicked out his sister and her friends, and Fort Detrick got attacked by some zeds.”

  “Holy shit,” Flash exclaimed.

  The two men conversed several minutes, which mostly consisted of Slim updating Flash on everything that had happened while he was gone. Slim intentionally avoided talking about Sully and Erin, for which Flash was grateful. After a lull in conversation, Slim cleared his throat.

  “Um, you’re going to be getting a lot of visitors pretty soon now,” he said. “They’re going to want to know everything that happened. Why don’t you sneak out of here and go take yourself a long hot shower and put on some clean clothes? Oh, and maybe brush your teeth too. Your breath smells like a dead buzzard.”

  Slim gave Flash a big goofy grin. Flash found himself smiling back.

  It wasn’t until later, when Flash was alone in the locker room taking a hot shower, that he allowed himself to cry.

  Chapter 55 – The Return of Team Mad Dog

  “Looks like we got people waiting on us,” True remarked and pointed out the window.

  Melvin had been partially dozing in the sleeper, but instantly awakened. He sat up and looked out. There were about twenty-some-odd people on the side of the road waving and cheering.

  By the time they arrived at the main gate, the number of people swelled to over a hundred. Liam blasted the truck’s air horn a couple of times, which increased the commotion.

  “Fellas, I believe we’ve got us a homecoming going on here,” he said. He stopped at the entrance and set the brake. The four men got out and were immediately embraced by the crowd. A couple of people went around to the back and opened the trailer doors. When they saw the stacks of ammo cans, there was a cacophony of hoots and whistles. Priss ran up and hugged Li
am, and then pushed him back at arm’s length and wrinkled her nose.

  “You stink,” she proclaimed.

  Logan guffawed with delight. “You like it when I’m dirty.”

  Savannah came out of the main entrance with little Prairie in tow. She looked like she’d been rudely awakened from a nap, but when she saw True, she squealed in glee and ran to him.

  “She’s been a handful these past couple of days,” Savannah said to him. “Maybe now that you two are home she’ll be better.”

  She then turned and grabbed Melvin in a tight hug. “I’ve missed you,” she exclaimed.

  “I’ve missed you more,” Melvin replied and hugged her tightly.

  She whispered in his ear, “You need a bath. C’mon, I’ll scrub your back for you.”

  “What about Savannah?” Melvin asked.

  “Janet said she’d babysit for a couple of hours.”

  “You will all have to come to medical first.”

  Melvin turned to see Grant Parsons standing there. He started to protest, but Grant held up a hand. “I can assure you it will be short and sweet, unless of course any of you exhibit signs of infection.”

  Melvin grunted his dissatisfaction but then got the attention of his teammates and led them to medical. As promised, after giving them a visual once over and checking their vitals, Grant sent them on their way fifteen minutes later. The men went with their respective lady’s rooms and did not come up for air until dinner time.

  Chapter 56 – Carnage

  As the sun came up, Justin, Stretch, Shooter and I exited the bunker and walked around, observing the carnage. There was death and destruction everywhere.

  “How many, do you think?” Justin asked me.

  I did a quick scan. One of my strong points is I could look over an area and make a quick count. “It looks like five to six hundred, so I’d guess we were attacked by no less than a thousand.”

  “Was it like this at the CDC?” Shooter asked Justin.

  “Imagine this, times fifty. That was the CDC,” Justin answered. “The smell alone was enough to kill you.” He kicked at a rock, which hit a corpse in the head. “It’s going to be hell cleaning up this mess.”

  “Are we going to burn all of them?” Shooter asked.

  “We have to,” Stretch replied. “It’s unsanitary to leave them around. Are we taking them to the quarry?”

  “Yeah,” Justin said. He focused on Shooter. “Alright, run through the mess hall and round everyone up. Nobody sleeps until we get our AO squared away.”

  “Roger that,” Shooter said and took off at a jog.

  Justin watched and turned toward me. “Have you been in the lab yet?”

  I shook my head. “After my exit from the guard tower…”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” he remarked.

  He listened as I explained. “After that group of zeds went by, that’s when I hustled over to the bunker.”

  He nodded in understanding. He motioned for me to follow him and led me to the NBACC building. There were ten people guarding it. Their faces were heavy with fatigue. One of them was Andre, and even though he was the oldest person here, he looked like he could easily go another day or two without sleep.

  “Y’all want the bad news or the bad news?” he asked but did not wait for a response. “We got three dead folks and your patient, along with her baby, are gone.” He gestured at Troy. “He saw it.”

  Troy Walton was a couple of years younger than Andre. He used to be a truck driver, and in fact looked exactly like a stereotypical driver depicted in movies. He rubbed his beard and cleared his throat.

  “Well, I was in guard tower six. I’d run out of ammo, so was mostly just watching. They were running around everywhere, like they had no idea of their purpose, then all of a sudden, a hundred or so formed up in a big glob and attacked the entrance to the building. Several of them were shot, but they got in. About fifteen minutes go by and they come back outside, form up, and then they leave.”

  “Did you see Patient Eve or the baby?” I asked.

  Troy shook his head. “They were all massed together.”

  Justin asked if I had any questions.

  “Not right now,” I said. “At some point, we’ll all have to sit down for a full debriefing, but that can wait. Let’s go have a look inside.”

  “Alright, everyone, we’re going to check things out down in the labs. I need you guys to form up in teams and search every square inch of this place. Andre, I want you to take charge of it.” He stopped in mid-sentence and stifled a yawn. “Stretch, I’m so out of sorts, I’ve forgotten to make sure we have a hundred percent accountability.”

  “Already done, sir,” Stretch said. “We have two possibly deceased inside the lab, and one unaccounted for. That’s Patches. He was assigned to post eight, but he was gone when I checked.”

  Patches was a recent rescue. He was found in southern Virginia living in a cabin in the woods. When found, his clothing was a conglomeration of patches. It took him a while to get used to being around humans again, but he turned out to be a decent guy.

  “Alright, nobody rests until Patches is found.”

  After getting his people sorted, Justin and I entered the building. There were dead zeds everywhere; it was a hell of a fight. We made our way carefully down to the labs.

  Doctor Washington was the first person we found. She’d been horribly mutilated and torn apart, as if the zeds were enraged by her rather than merely hungry. The hallway where she was found was splattered with blood. As we worked our way further in, we found Patches and Doctor Throneberry were found together. There were several dead zeds piled around and Patches was practically buried by them. Justin got on his portable and updated everyone.

  “We’re going to give them burials with full honors,” he proclaimed.

  “Yeah, they deserve it,” I said. “My guess is Patches saw what was happening and came to help the docs. He knew how dangerous it was going to be, but he did it anyway. Now that is a character trait you don’t see every day.”

  “Yeah,” Justin murmured.

  We inspected everything closely. A key card was lying on the floor in front of the lab where Patient Eve was kept. I pointed it out.

  “One of them had the brains to take the key card off of one of the docs and use it to open the doors,” I said.

  We propped the doors open and entered Patient Eve’s domicile. Nothing much was in disarray. The chains used to restrain her were lying on the floor and a baby blanket was missing, but that was it.

  “Zach, these things are acting like humans again,” Justin remarked.

  “Yeah, in a manner of speaking.” I hooked a thumb back toward the hallway. “Doctor Throneberry thought so too. He believed if the brain was not overly ravaged, they could regain ninety percent of their thinking and cognition.”

  “Why did they want her so badly?” he asked.

  “That, my friend, is the question of the day,” I said. “It’s strange as hell. It was strange how they revered Melvin’s ex-wife.”

  The first thing we did, after taking pictures, was wrap up Patches and the doctors in blankets and stored them in an unused cold storage. We then spent the rest of the day hauling off the dead zeds. It helped that we had a dump truck and one of those Bobcat loaders. Troy was a master with it and could easily scoop up the bodies and dump them in the bed of the truck.

  It reminded me of old times.

  There was so much more to do; clean weapons, inventory ammo, repair damages to the defense works, and that was only the beginning. At dinner, Justin announced we would be on fifty percent strength until further notice. The announcement was met with a cacophony of groans.

  “Welcome to the world of war, people,” Justin said and walked over to a chalkboard by the entrance. He wrote out a schedule by memory. Setting the chalk down, he turned to face his unhappy audience.

  “Alright, the first shift begins in thirty minutes. I would advise you to eat up, take your d
aily dump, maybe take a shower, and then relieve the people who are currently manning the posts.” He then fixed everyone with a cold stare. “Now, some of you are thinking something along the lines of how you can’t be told what to do and you’re going to crawl into your fart sack no matter what.” He shook his head. “Don’t do it. Bad things will happen to anyone who shirks their duty. Alright, I’ve got the first shift. In four hours, the second shift takes over. Stretch will be in command. If she decides to kill anyone who disobeys orders, she’ll have my full backing.”

  “Mine too.” First Sergeant Crumby had walked in and was standing behind Justin. He came in last night around midnight. After the attack, he and his QRF had traveled around the area in search of the horde. From the look on his face, I knew they had been unsuccessful.

  I finished my meal and walked over to Jeremiah.

  “I can already tell what you have to say,” I said.

  He responded with a frown. “It’s like they simply disappeared.”

  We spoke for a few minutes, recapping the day’s events. I then checked the chalkboard. I had the second shift. I hurried to the shower and then crawled into a cot in the dorm. It wasn’t home, but I was so tired it didn’t matter.

  It seemed like it was only a second later when the lights flashed several times before Justin’s booming voice informing everyone the next guard mount was in fifteen minutes.

  I was in the middle of an intense dream when I was jolted back into reality and I admit I uttered a few invectives toward Justin. I was in the middle of a dream, and in that dream, Patient Eve was talking to me.

  Journal Entry – November 10th, 9 A.Z.

  It has been extremely frustrating these last few months. I will start with the events that have occurred since my last journal entry on June 1st.

  The first item I will write about is Mount Weather’s first murder trial. The accused, Clay Fleming, is a man who lived in Marcus Hook. He was led to believe his teenage stepdaughter was raped. He got into a confrontation with the alleged assailant, a man by the name of Dalton Pentecost. Clay stabbed him to death. A formal trial was held at Mount Weather and a jury of his peers found him guilty of murder. The judge, Seth Kitchens, imposed the sentence of banishment.