She shut her eyes in desperation. Any second now they would come, and she would still be standing there. There has to be a way out of this, she thought. There must be something I can do. She’d come too far to let the opportunity slip through her fingers. People were relying on her. She couldn’t fail now.
She opened her eyes. At first, she didn’t know what she was looking at. She turned her head to one side. A small grate peered down at her, the metal latticework reflecting the light from the research center’s bright bulbs.
She climbed atop the dented trolley, using the two tiers as steps. The wheels squealed as they inched forward. Sam maintained her balance and held her arms out to the sides. She slowly stood at her full height and pushed the grating upwards. First one shove, then a second. It smacked the opposite side with a loud crash. She grabbed the sides and pulled herself up inch by inch.
Peering down through the gap, she realized the trolley was still in place. A little too conspicuous. She lowered her foot through the hole and knocked it backwards with her heel. The trolley clattered away, in the vague direction of the nearest workstation.
The light blinked green.
Sam’s heart was in her throat. She raised her leg the final few inches.
The door slid open and a guard stepped into the research center. He scanned the area and walked around the terminals, checking each potential hiding place. Then he turned his back and returned to the door.
Sam took the opportunity to grab the metal mesh and lower it back into place. She lay flat on her stomach and peered through the square latticework, too terrified to move a single muscle.
The Architect stepped inside the research center and cast an appraising eye over the space. He wiped a finger on a shiny tabletop and rubbed his fingers together. Something snagged his eye. He approached the trolley Sam had shoved away at the last minute.
Sam shrank back. A battering ram thundered in her head.
The Architect placed his hand on the trolley’s curved handle. “Tell Lester to ensure the research center is always in perfect condition. We can’t have things lying in the middle of the floor like this. It’s not even clean.”
Blond nodded. He kept his eyes low, submissive.
The Architect wiped his hand on a cloth. “We mustn’t allow the researcher to get slovenly now, even if they did try to escape. We must run a much tighter ship from now on.”
The Architect stepped into the elevator, reached inside his shirt, and took out his key. He slipped the cigar-shaped thing into the hole below the elevator controls. It had intricate etchings around the sides. He didn’t twist it.
Sam attempted to swallow spit she did not have. Had she left something behind? Had she left a trace?
The Architect held the guards with a level gaze. “No more escapes, unless you want your loved ones to pay the price for your ineptitude.”
The guards lowered their eyes. “It won’t happen again, sir.”
“It had better not.” The Architect twisted the key and the elevator doors slid shut.
Sam knew she ought to lower her eyes in case the man sensed someone watching him, but the thought he might discover her without her knowing, put her too much on edge.
The Architect pressed a button and the elevator shivered into life.
Sam couldn’t believe it. She might stand a chance of getting out of this hell hole. She would find Tommy and tell him what the Architect was up to, where he was holding the scientists and soldiers captive. Things could still go back to the way they had been before this whole mess. It was still possible.
The elevator shuddered into movement, the cables above her rattling as they exchanged tension and the miniature room began to move.
To her horror, it moved down, not up.
31.
HAWK
Hawk felt good as new after Dr. Archer refilled Hawk’s auto-injector with blood and replaced the piston on his arm.
“Anything else I can do for you?” the doctor said sweetly.
What a difference a little threat of annihilation could have on a person. That, and an undead standing within biting distance.
“There is one more thing.”
Dr. Archer put her tools down. “Anything. Name it.”
Hawk formed the words very carefully. “Get in the cage.”
The doctor blinked and her smile remained fixed in place. She just stared at him. For a long time. Then she stumbled a step. “Which cage?”
“There’s only one cage here.”
Dr. Archer turned to the dirty cage, the undead creature clutching the bars with his torn hands. “But where will Joe go?”
Hawk arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly concerned about his welfare.”
“Yes. . . No. . . I don’t think. . .”
“You don’t need to think. Just get inside.”
The doctor looked between Hawk and Joe, weighing up her options. So far as Hawk could see, she had none. She nodded and stepped inside the cage. She turned her nose up at the stink and no doubt wished she’d kept it in better condition. The newspapers hadn’t been changed for some time.
Hawk pointed to a small patch of floor. “There’s a clean part there if you can curl up small enough.”
Hawk didn’t smile, but there was no hiding how much he enjoyed the reversal. He shut the cage door and waited for the automatic lock to turn on.
Dr. Archer stood with her back to the bars, eyes filled with fear. “What are you going to do with Joe?”
“Joe’s staying right here. Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”
Dr. Archer grasped the bars in her hands. She scowled at the crud on her fingers. “You can’t do this. He’ll rip me to pieces.”
“Only if he catches you.”
Hawk relinquished control of Joe, who, quick as a flash, rushed for the cage bars. He mashed his body against it and stretched his arms through the bars.
The good doctor flew back as far as her tiny prison allowed. Joe’s fingertips brushed the lapels of her jacket, smearing them with blood and excrement.
Hawk crossed to the computer terminal. He pressed a few random buttons but it was no use. It was far too complicated. He couldn’t take the risk there was some way to remotely control the device in his head. He had to shut it off, even if it meant killing him.
He picked a screwdriver up off the countertop and opened the back case. He withdrew the parts and doused them with sulphuric acid from a plastic container on a shelf. The part fizzed and sparked. He didn’t stop until it had all melted away.
And what if there was a backup system to control the device? He’d have to get his hands on a pistol. It was the only real failsafe there was.
He swiped the doctor’s key card over the terminal. The light blinked green and the door slid open.
The doctor dashed to the wall closest to Hawk. “Please! Don’t leave me here! I was just doing my job!”
Joe snatched her flapping jacket and held her tight. The doctor slipped on excrement on the floor of the cage. Joe fell to all fours and crawled toward her.
Hawk stepped outside the lab and into the base. He let the door slide shut, cutting off Dr. Archer’s screams of agony.
32.
TOMMY
Well, this is a pretty pickle and no mistake.
Tommy’s senses screamed at him to climb off the woman. He felt like a boy caught with his pants down in the back of his piece-of-shit car. And the woman’s father had a very nice gun collection that he was dying to show him.
Tommy released the woman and rolled up onto his feet. He snatched her wrist before she could slip away. This time, he didn’t concern himself with hurting her. His life was on the line. He twisted the woman’s arms behind her back. She yelped in pain.
“Come out, old man,” Tommy said.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Angus shifted his weight.
Tommy tightened his grip on the woman. “I know you’re there, Angus. All I want is the key. Give it to me and I’ll leave you and your daughter
alone. You have my word you’ll never see me again.”
A deep throaty chuckle rounded the doorway. Angus’s unruly silhouette stood steeped in shadow. “The word of a liar? Forgive me if I don’t whoop for joy.”
Tommy eyed the power drill clutched in Angus’s hand. “You know I didn’t lie. And I’m not lying now. This doesn’t need to end badly for either of us.”
“It will end badly for one of us. You’re in my home.” His tone didn’t soften. “Are you all right, my girl?”
The woman nodded. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I fought him, I did, but he was too strong, too fast—”
Angus’s eyes didn’t leave Tommy. “He’s a big fella. There ain’t much you can do with someone of a certain size. Not unless you’re of a certain size yourself.”
“Just give me the key and I’ll go. No more trouble.”
Angus raised the power drill to his temple and scratched. He took a step across the threshold. “We’ve already got ourselves a little trouble. A little more won’t make much difference.”
Tommy took a step back. The room was too small to take many more.
Angus bent down to pick the black lace off the floor. “If the people of this town learn you escaped, and then you crept into my store, beat my daughter, and held us hostage until we gave you what you wanted, what do you think they’re going to think of me as a leader?”
Tommy’s mouth felt dry. “They don’t need to know I was here.”
“They’ll know. They always find out in the end.”
Tommy checked over his shoulders. The shithole had no windows. The only way out was through that doorway.
Crunch!
An instant after the sound, the woman struggled against him.
Tommy didn’t loosen his grip. When he moved to take a step back, his foot didn’t move the way he expected. It was pinned to the floor beneath the woman’s waspish heel.
She ground it harder into the flesh of his foot, her teeth gritted and a look of intense excitement in her features.
Tommy removed his foot. “Great. Now I’m going to get soggy socks.”
The woman was flummoxed. She hadn’t expected that reaction.
Because she doesn’t know what I am.
Tommy smiled, seeing the way out of this sorry mess. “You guys, there’s something you ought to know about me. You see, I’m not like you.”
The woman turned pale. “You should be writhing on the floor. . .”
“He will be soon, darling.” Angus squeezed the trigger on the power drill.
The shrieking machinery set Tommy’s teeth on edge. “If you use that on me, you’ll both turn into zombies.”
Angus snorted. “That’s a new one.”
“I’m infected, asshole. Drill that into me and my blood goes everywhere. A single drop gets into your system and you’re infected.”
Angus released the trigger and stared blankly at him. “Any number of things you could have said. Instead, you chose to say something so frickin’ dumb.”
Tommy shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“Then you should have lied.”
Angus restarted the drill and bared down on him, a sinister grin through missing teeth. The zombie attack had disturbed the town’s sanity. There would be no coming back for them, whether they found the cure or not.
The woman tightened in Tommy’s grip and turned her head away from the crying drill. “Daddy?”
“Hold still, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”
The woman didn’t relax. It told Tommy everything he needed to know about their relationship.
Angus looked for an opening, jabbing at the hand wrapped about his daughter’s throat.
Tommy’s stomach clenched. He pulled back, the whirring drill bit coming within inches of his flesh.
The daughter screamed. “Daddy! Stop!”
Angus thrust again. The drill sliced open Tommy’s flesh. Blood spurted and dribbled thickly down his forearm.
Angus was spurred on, driven wild at the sight and smell of blood.
The woman couldn’t pull her eyes from Tommy’s wound. “There’s something wrong with your blood, dude—” Her eyes widened with shock. She pried at his unflinching grip on her soft flesh. “Stop, Daddy! Stop!”
Angus stabbed left, leaving a space to the right. Tommy made to step around Angus, but he blocked it fast.
Tommy stepped back onto the bed. He dragged the woman with him. “Don’t do this. Nobody needs to die today.”
Angus stabilized his stance. “That’s where you’re wrong, bud.”
He swiped the power drill in a wide arc. No chance of missing this time. Either his daughter would receive the blow or Tommy would.
Tommy spoke under his breath. “As you wish.”
He shoved the woman aside. Her foot snagged on the blanket and her head smacked against the bed’s metal frame.
Tommy took the blow high on his thigh. The drill tore through his pants and burrowed deep in his flesh. The blood splattered in an arc across the musty wallpaper and worn sheets. It even daubed the stained ceiling.
Angus howled in victory as the blood sprayed his face and dripped off the tip of his nose. He retracted the drill to strike again. His grip faltered and the drill slipped from his fingers, tumbling to the floor. The mechanism rumbled to a stop.
Angus staggered and steadied himself with a hand to the wall. A bloody handprint slid, forming a falling meteor as the man fell to his knees. Woozy, he stared at Tommy through his red mask. “You told. . . the truth?”
Oxygen rasped through his throat. He tore at the top buttons of his shirt to relieve the pressure. It didn’t help. He dug deep furrows in his neck with his fingernails. He coughed and whooped, a searing gasp rasping from his throat.
Tommy wrapped the woman’s arm around his neck. He eased her up and led her out of the room. She stumbled and would have lost her feet if Tommy hadn’t been there to support her. He stopped at the door and held the woman’s chin in his hand.
“Your father’s dead,” he said. “Yes, he’s just about managing to breathe for now. Soon, he won’t. Then, he’ll start walking around. He’ll be one of them. A zombie. He did that to himself. You heard me warn him. He did that to you too, unless you decide to change it. I’m going to leave you in this room with him unless you tell me where my key is. You have to tell me before he turns.”
Angus groaned, a deep mournful thing that clung to the heartstrings. He lay on the floor, facedown, and became very still.
“Time’s running short,” Tommy said.
The woman couldn’t take her eyes off the man. “Daddy?”
He didn’t move a muscle. But soon he will.
The woman beat on Tommy’s chest. “You killed him! You killed him!”
Tommy seized her arms. “He killed himself. I had no part in it.”
A wheeze as the old man’s lungs deflated. Angus pressed his hands to the floor and arched his neck around to peer at them. Blood stained his face and his eyes were wide open and unblinking as he labored up onto his feet.
The woman pressed her hands together. “Daddy?”
He rocked side to side, pushing himself up in labored stages. First, he bore the weight on his ankles and knees, then his hips. He shuffled to one side, almost losing balance. He turned on the spot.
One look at Angus and the woman knew he was no longer her father. All life, that glow behind the eyes, was gone. No thoughts passed across that face. Still, he lumbered toward them.
Tommy smacked the woman across the face, waking her up. “The key. Where is it?”
The woman turned to watch her old man stumble toward them.
Tommy punched the wall an inch beside the woman’s face. “I swear to God, I’ll leave you in this room with him!”
“My father’s bedroom.” Just the word father brought tears to her eyes. “In the safe behind the nightstand.”
“Code?”
“1986. My birth year.”
Tommy ushered her out the door and slamm
ed it in the creature’s face. He moved down the hallway. “You’ll want to put a strong lock on that door.” He opened another door and found an aged bathroom. He moved on to the next room. “Better yet, put him out of his misery. Otherwise, he’ll be a major pain to you and everyone else in this town.”
The woman slid down the door and sat on the floor. She put her face in her hands.
Tommy pushed another door open. A bedroom. As cold and lacking in personal touches as the girl’s room. Buried in the wall beside the bed, a small safe with a dirty keypad. He input the code. The door popped open without sound or signal. He removed several envelopes and the most recent apple of his eye.
The key dangled by its chain. Even Angus must have recognized the key’s obvious value if he locked it up in a safe like this. He put it on, tucked it under his shirt and returned to the hallway.
The woman hadn’t moved from her position. She seemed to take comfort in the scratching sound at her back. “Get what you came for?”
“With no thanks from you, yes.” Tommy turned to leave. “Adios.”
The woman stood up. “You should take me with you.”
“No.”
“I could be useful to you. And with my daddy dead, I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Even a place such as this is better than where we’re going.”
“Where’s that?”
“Hell.”
Tommy’s footsteps left a bloody trail, growing fainter, until they turned ghostly, and then invisible. He stepped outside onto the pavement.
The guys pulled up in a large SUV. Tommy climbed onboard.
“How’d it go?” Emin said.
Tommy shut the door. “Get us out of here. I never want to see this town again.”
Guy peered in the rearview mirror. “As well as it did for us then.”
33.
SAM
Sam peered up at the tunnel. Light escaped the elevator shaft and cast elongated prison bars of shadow, but darkness soon crept in and erased any hint of an end. Each second that passed took her farther from the surface, from freedom. She was more trapped now than she’d been in her cell.
Death Squad (Book 3): Zombie Nation Page 19
