Harry was carrying Brian’s body over to them. It was severely disfigured and barely breathing. It needed to eat badly and Randall wished that he could let it feed on the man on the ground for punishment but the remainder of his humanity wouldn’t allow that. He grunted at Harry to bring Brian over.
“Brian? You did this for that…thing? It attacked one of the cows. We tried to let it…”
“Why you talkin’ to that thing, Earl? It don’t understand what you’re sayin’.” The other guy interrupted.
Bear smacked the back of his head in response.
“They’re like Brian, only eat animals. Am I right?” There was a long pause. “Or not…” Earl speculated.
Randall broke the rope that bound Brian and tossed his weak body over his shoulder. He walked away towards the barn.
“Where you goin’?” Earl turned to Bear. “Where’s he goin’?”
Bear nodded them forward to follow Randall. Harry grabbed Dean by his left leg and dragged him along. They approached the barn and held their hands up. The women and children screamed again.
“Wait, wait! Don’t shoot. They haven’t attacked us. They just came for Brian. He’s one of them.” Earl clarified.
Randall knocked on the door to the barn. After a ten second pause, he howled viciously and knocked again a bit louder.
“Open the damned door, Theresa.” The other man instructed.
“Why should we open it, Paul?”
“Because I fucking said so, that’s why. Now open up.” He urged.
“Fine.” Theresa answered.
Three wood pieces blocking the entrance were removed quickly and the sound of them being tossed on the ground indicated progress. The doors opened slowly. Ten women and twenty-two children all huddled in the back corner behind cows and goats. Bear pushed the men inside and Harry drug Dean inside.
“What’s wrong with Dean?” Theresa asked.
“Pissed them off, I guess.” Earl suggested.
“Makes sense. Can’t believe you joined in with Dean, beating on Brian. He’s been such a sweet…”
“Zombie? He’s a fucking zombie. They’re all goddamned zombies.” Dean hollered as he awoke spitting grass and mud out of his mouth. Harry was outside with the others by the time Dean stood to his feet.
“You’ll never be like us. We’re not savages. We can talk.” Dean wore a wry grin.
Randall grunted, banged his chest and gestured to his group.
“Do any of you understand that primitive shit? They’re retards. The virus fucked up their brains. They’ll never be like us.” Dean continued and brushed blood off his upper lip with his sleeve.
“Look, out there. There’s hundreds of them out there. It’s a trap!” A woman near a window deep inside cried out.
Randall grunted, shook his head and pulled the doors closed with bear. They stood in front of the entrance to the barn, facing the herd and its new Alpha. Randall took in a big breath and released a mighty roar causing all of them to freeze in their tracks. He nodded at Bear, handed over Brian, and began to sprint away from the farm towards a distant forest a mile away. Karla appeared awake and stayed with Bear. He dragged the herd along commanding them to follow his will. He discovered a group of wild horses freed from their farms and killed three of them. The herd fed on their meat in a wild frenzy. He severed the connection and returned to the farm in hopes that they would not follow him or return.
Randall brought a hind quarter from one of the horses for Brian to eat when he awoke. As he returned in a light jog, Bear, Harry and Karla stood in front of the doors. Karla was studying Brian’s condition as he rested on a bale of hay. Her head lifted and she smiled when she saw Randall. He nodded the success and tossed over the hind quarter from the horse to Karla. He pointed at Brian and she understood.
Randall gestured to the doors and Bear banged on them with his large heavy fist. The door rattled in response, inspiring yelps from the women and children inside. When the doors didn’t open, Bear banged even harder followed by a terrifying roar. Seconds later, sounds of locks disengaging, and men cussing followed. When the doors opened, Dean and his band of farmers aimed pitchforks shotguns and machete’s towards Randall and his crew.
“What do you want, zombie?” Dean asked sarcastically.
Randall waved his arms towards all of outside and pointed at his eyes. He mimed a hungry zombie and pointed towards the woods where he dropped the herd off.
“Are they coming back?” Theresa asked, pushing through the men.
Randall shrugged. He pointed to Brian weakly eating pieces of the horse leg and to a direction towards Chicago.
“Is that it? You just are taking Brian and leaving?” She appeared confused.
Bear pointed to one of the largest bulls in the barn. All the heads of the people turned towards the bull.
“You want Zeus?” Theresa asked.
“Fuck that. They aren’t taking shit.” Dean argued.
Bear snatched the pitchfork out of Dean’s hands with a quick swipe and tossed it behind him. The humans inside gasped and squealed in response.
“Fine, fine. Ginger, bring Zeus out to these…friends.” Theresa instructed.
A teenage girl with red hair climbed over the fence and began to lead the bull outside. Her two long French braids kept her hair out of her face.
“Friends?” Dean scoffed. Theresa scowled at him.
“Yes, friends that lured a bunch of the Azrael away.” She glared at him menacingly.
“And yet there are Azrael right here…staring at us.” He continued.
“Go fuck yourself, Dean. You’re going to get all of us killed because of pride. If Daddy was alive, he’d have done the same thing.” Theresa argued.
“Daddy’s dead, Theresa. One of those things….” Dean gestured towards Randall and his company. “…bit him. He was a fool and so are you.”
Ginger let the bull lose and jabbed it with an electric prod causing it to sprint away towards the road with a maddened grunt.
“There you go.” Ginger spoke with a hand on her hip.
Bear nodded and began pursuit. The others followed, except Randall. He walked over to the girl, smiled and patted her on the head. She stiffened up as he touched her.
“Ginger, over here.” Theresa hollered over.
Randall nodded at Theresa and turned to sprint away.
“Will you come back?” Theresa shouted as he left.
Randall shook his head mid stride in response. Minutes later, the small herd disappeared over the horizon.
Chapter 9: Motives
Simon was escorted to the fifth floor. He paid close attention to every detail of each room, guard and keystrokes beyond that of the swipe of their cards. He was a large man, so most discounted his intellect. As long as he continued to play the fool, he should be able to find an opportunity to escape.
He was brought to the fifth room down the hall from the elevators on the right. Before he realized that it was in fact a holding cell, two men pushed Simon within and slammed the door closed. He turned around and hollered.
“What’s this for? We were just in the area.” He protested.
The room was dimly lit and contained a small 15-inch monitor above the door behind a thick sheet of ballistic grade glass. The room was padded and provided a bench against the back wall from one side to the other. A voice escaped a small speaker near the monitor.
“Observe the monitor above the door.” A young man’s voice instructed. His voice carried a distinct accent of a man from Boston.
“What am I looking at?” Simon asked and took a seat on the bench. His knee began to throb from his recent activities assisting Mario.
“You tell me.” The voice answered.
A timestamped video played with poor picture quality. It was dated a few days back. It appeared to be a group of five people huddled around someone. The camera attempted to zoom in but couldn’t identify any features of anyone amongst the group. However, Simon’s size was easily ident
ifiable amongst the group.
“You think that fella is me?” Simon asked.
“Why should we not believe that it is you? It’s kind of a coincidence that a man of your stature would be snoopin’ around here again.”
“Again? I’ve never been here before in my life. I guess it kind of looks like me, but I’m not that guy.”
“So you say.”
“Yes, I say.”
“We will find out the truth, whether you want to cooperate or not.”
“Aww man, come on. This is bullshit.”
“Maybe your friend will be more cooperative with the right stimulation.”
“Whatcha talkin’ about man? Juan ain’t done shit.” The voice didn’t respond. After a few minutes Simon spoke. “Hello? Ya still there?” Again, he was met with silence.
Simon laid his back on the bench and pulled the heels of his feet to his butt. The tips of his toes pressed against the side wall and his knees leaned against the back wall to his left. His hands rested beneath his head and he attempted to grab some shut eye. He needed to seize every chance to rest in case he wasn’t given the option later.
.
*
Mario was placed on a medical table that had a clean sheet of paper beneath him. They strapped him to the table, stretched out his legs and began to remove his pants.
“Whoa, it hurts man. Do it slowly.” He urged.
“Dr. Poloski is aware of your injury. Appreciate that we are doing this for you. We could have left you…”
“Enough Bradley. I’ve got this.” The doctor interrupted the guard. She was fairly young, ate well, and had a friendly round face. “Stay calm. What’s your name?”
“Juan…Juan Garcia.” Mario answered.
“Juan, huh.” She studied his demeanor, squinted and nodded. “So, Juan, why were you out there?” She asked while elevating his leg with a few stiff pillows. She applied a pressure bandage just above the injury to slow the bleeding.
“Me and Robert were scavenging from this house about a mile away.”
The doctor retrieved some alcohol from the drawer, soaked it into a gauze pad and applied it to the wound. Mario winced. “Shit! That stings.” Mario flinched.
“Killing off any infection.” She rubbed it across the injury and retrieved another pad. “So, you were scavenging.”
“Yeah, we found a few cooking supplies, a half can of salt and a few rolls of chew.”
“Chew?”
“Uh, chewing tobacco.”
“Ah, okay. Then what?”
“Well, as we walked out we noticed a few stragglers in the woods nearby.”
“The zombies?”
“Yeah, those things. We figured that we could take them, to hopefully avoid alerting any others. But…”
“There were more?”
“Damn right there were….” The doctor felt around within the wound for the bullet. “…shit, a fuck-ton of them.” He continued.
“So you and your friend made it all the way over here, over the fences and carefully navigated around hidden mines?” She asked as she yanked out the iron in his leg and dropped it in a pan with a clanking noise. Blood began to spray out. “Damn it. Think it was clogging an artery. That’s most unfortunate.”
“Most unfortunate? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Well, I’m not just a doctor, you see.”
“Huh?”
She placed her gloved hands on the injury and dug a finger into the wound.
“Guess this will plug it up.” Mario screamed. Blood continued to bubble around her fat finger. “At this rate, you’ll bleed out in a few minutes. So, how about we start telling the truth…Juan, if that’s even your real name.”
“My name is Juan Garcia. I’m from Pasadena, California. My social is 562…”
“Enough lies!” She added another finger into the wound stretching it out.
“Fuck!” He hollered. “562...98…” She pressed in harder.
“Why are you making this difficult for yourself?” She released her fingers and blood squirted across the floor.
Mario began to look pale. He was losing too much blood and appeared to be light headed.
“562...9…8…” He passed out.
“Damn it.” Dr. Poloski applied pressure to the wound with a large bandage and wrapped up the injury. She set up a bag of O negative on an IV stand and initiated a blood transfusion. A man entered the room moments later.
“What you think Doc?” He asked.
“Can’t tell. He’s either telling the truth…or he’s one tough son of a bitch.” She shrugged.
“Keep an eye on him. We’ll keep pressing on his friend too. If they’re lying, they’ll make a mistake at some point.” He speculated.
“Maybe. Or these guys just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s getting worse out there.” She admitted. They exited the room, closed the door and continued their conversation.
“We’ll be fine. Once we locate Miss Banks, we’ll finally have the answers we need.”
“You think she has the key?” She questioned.
“I know she does. She’s got everything she needs to receive, suppress and control the virus.”
“So you believe the work from the Veil and the doctor from Chicago is 100% accurate? They could have made a mistake.” She asked.
“The doctor from Chicago has something to prove and I’ve yet to encounter false information from the Veil. Just yesterday, there was news that Taliah arrived at their underground facility with a François Messier.”
“Are we sending someone over?” She asked.
“Already someone there. Just awaiting the call.”
“That’s great news.”
“That’s not the only news. They know she’s pregnant.” He revealed.
“It was going to happen eventually.”
“Yeah, but it does complicate things. She will receive a bit more protection there than before. They know that a pregnant woman’s immune system can confuse the virus’ attempt at controlling the host. Add the fact that she is HIV positive. It attacks and destroys the immune system which is the very foundation that the virus is built on.”
“Mark did a good job altering the test results while he was there.” She added.
“He went back.”
“To Chicago?”
“Yes.” He confirmed.
“For what?”
“I don’t know what he’s up to now. He’s been doing his own thing lately. Mr. Kolovski has been displeased with his insubordination. He’s on the gray list.” He explained.
“Already?”
“Unless he can find the girl, he’s gonna be eliminated.”
“The girl…Emma?”
“Yup, she’s still evolving. She’s gonna be a problem if we don’t find her soon.”
Another man approached the two with information about another offsite facility.
“They found Savanna Samuels.”
“Another pawn to play. Thanks for the update Barry.” The man smiled.
“She was with a John Masterson. Danielle has him scavenging the main store.” Barry added.
“Damn, well maybe she’ll be more cooperative with him dead. Anything else?” He asked.
“She said that a group would be attempting to penetrate this facility. Think it’s these guys, Paul?” Barry asked.
“Most likely. I think we need to be a bit more aggressive with our interrogations from here on out.” Paul smiled. Barry walked away and exited the hallway back into the warehouse.
“I’ll inform the security team with this new information. Keep this Juan guy drugged. We can’t afford him breaking out if he is, in fact, a part of the Highwaymen.”
“Got it.” Dr. Poloski answered and entered the room. Juan was gone. She hurried out.
“He’s gone.”
“He’s what?” Paul stormed into the room with Dr. Poloski close behind. “How did he…?”
Mario appeared from behind the door and kicke
d it closed. He slit Paul’s throat while covering his mouth with his left hand to silence a scream. The doctor froze in fear. He stabbed her in her neck with a syringe and injected her with a heavy sedative. She stood there, eyes wide in shock. Mario guided her body to the ground as it became limp. He pulled her to a dark corner and laid Paul’s corpse on top of her. He searched Paul and the doctor’s bodies for their keycards and located them both. He snagged a white lab coat from a hook on the back of the door, donned it and shut the door. He walked out casually with his back to the camera on the East wall and with his chin down. He headed towards the warehouse. He needed to locate the rest of his team as soon as possible. The only problem was that he had no clue where anyone was. But what he did know was that there was a room full of witnesses with information about Simon’s whereabouts along with a helpful resource to find the others.
Chapter 10: Anything for Savanna
Crouched behind a display of fairly priced tires, John peered through them towards a group of three Azrael drawn to the sound of his movements. He removed the masking agent from his back pocket and applied it liberally.
John grabbed a handful of tire pressure gauges from a bin nearby and placed them in his pocket. He kept one, brought in a deep breath and tossed it over their heads towards the Electronics Department. As it landed, he shot two accurately placed shots into the skull of the closest Azrael. It dropped like a sack of potatoes. The gauge clanked on the floor and slid into a rack of DVDs. The other two turned and headed towards the sound before he could shoot them. John quietly headed towards the front of the store cautiously peeking behind each aisle before passing it.
Another small group of Azrael was gathered in the Sporting Goods section, huddled near the register stepping over broken glass from the knife display. He retrieved his own knife given to him by Giselle. The craftsmanship was far better than the blades displayed within the broken glass case. He activated and deactivated the On/Off button with the beam aimed into his palm. It seemed to work well. Yet, he hoped that he wouldn’t need to use it. He placed it back into its sheath.
John retrieved another gauge from his pocket and hurled it towards the center of the store in the Home section. As it landed, he waited for the group to disperse before moving towards the front of the store. All but one of them investigated the unexpected noise. The largest Azrael brought its head up and watched as the others checked out the sound. John aimed his pistol and shot a round at its head. It moved as he shot and only grazed its left ear. Confused, pissed and surprised all in the same instant, the Azrael whipped its head around looking directly at the barrel of John’s pistol. He pulled the trigger once more sending a perfect shot between its eyes sending it on its back with a loud crackling thump as it landed on the broken glass on the floor. The sound brought attention from the others and John hurried into the Toys section of the store. He noticed three more groups heading towards the sound of the fallen Azrael. One of the groups exited an aisle that he just hurried past. He had been lucky so far. About sixty feet away John could see the sign for the Pharmacy. He took in a few deep breaths and retrieved another tire gauge. He nervously rubbed it between the fingers of his left hand, kissed it and tossed it towards the Checkout section of the store. Before it landed a loud screech escaped the loudspeaker drowning out the sound of the tire gauge.
The Azrael (Book 5): Prisoners Page 6
