“Sure,” I said. “But I’d like to ask you a question first.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Do you know the location of Bunker 53?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ll know why when we tell you how we happen to have Patient Zero’s body. Bunker 53 is a government bunker and this is a government facility so you know where the bunker is, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, we know where it is.”
“Great,” I said.
He unlocked another door, this one opening into a large auditorium. It reminded me of the room at the Apocalypse Island facility where we’d been given our instruction to carry out Operation Wildfire.
“Take a seat,” Hart said. “Marilyn will be along momentarily.”
“She still in charge?” Sam asked.
Hart nodded. “She is indeed. It was Marilyn who made the decision to abandon the old island and come here. That was a tough decision to make but in the end, she saved a lot of lives. We wouldn’t have lasted much longer there.”
Sam, Tanya, and Lucy sat in the front row. I sat behind them. I’d never been a front row kind of guy.
The seats faced a darkened stage. After a few seconds, the stage lights came on and Marilyn MacDonald appeared. She was impeccably dressed in a dark blue skirt and white blouse. Her blonde hair was pinned up on her head and she wore her usual thick-rimmed glasses. Her job as director of this facility must have been fraught with stress but she exuded an air of calm confidence.
She looked down at us from the stage and said, “Good to see you again. Now, perhaps you can tell me how you got your hands on Patient Zero.”
14
Between us, we told her the story of what had happened since we’d received the call for help from Echo Six. MacDonald listened intently, interrupting every now and then to clarify a detail or ask us to provide more information on a particular part of our tale.
When we were finished, she nodded thoughtfully. “We need to know exactly what Locke meant when he referred to Operation Dead Ground.”
“What about Bunker 53?” I asked. “That’s where Locke said Vess’s body should go. To Dr Sarah Ives.”
“The body stays here,” she said. “We don’t have any scientists left to study it but now that it’s secure, I don’t recommend taking it anywhere else. Especially if it could come back to life at any moment.”
“I agree with your reasoning,” I told her. “But he was quite specific. Bunker 53 and Dr Ives. He must have said that for a reason.”
She considered that for a moment before saying, “We’ll bring Dr Ives here. She can examine the body in this facility. We have equipment and a lab she can use. I won’t compromise the safety of my people by having the body taken out into the world. Too much can go wrong. As long as it stays within this facility, we can ensure it won’t hurt anyone else.”
I wasn’t so sure I shared in her optimism regarding that point. The fact that they’d had to move to this new facility because the old one was overrun with zombies showed that the people here weren’t exactly infallible when it came to security.
Not to mention the fact that all the scientists I’d seen on Apocalypse Island were now either dead or undead. That didn’t fill me with confidence at all.
“I suggest you enjoy a meal in our cafeteria while I arrange for Dr Ives to be escorted here. Perhaps when she arrives we might find out why Sergeant Locke had specifically requested that Vess’s body be sent to her.”
“I’ll show you to the cafeteria,” Hart said. “The food is good and I imagine you’ve been living on whatever you can get your hands on out there, which might be adequate but not necessarily pleasant.”
Actually, we’d eaten fairly well on the boats. I certainly didn’t have any complaints. But the fact that I’d lived on low-quality food before the zombie apocalypse meant that I probably wasn’t the best person to judge.
When we got to the cafeteria—a busy place with a long food counter and metal tables bolted to the floor—I found the food to be no better or worse than anything else I’d eaten either before or after the apocalypse. It was standard fare, really: bacon, eggs, baked beans, and toast with a mug of hot tea.
The four of us sat at a table near the window and ate in silence. Hart had disappeared to do some chore or other and had promised to be back soon.
I finished before the others and pushed my plate away with a satisfied belch.
Tanya, who was sitting next to me, hit my arm. “Alex, don’t be a pig.”
“Sorry,” I said, picking up my mug and drinking some of my tea. “Hey, does anyone else feel a sense of relief?”
“I’m glad they took that damned body off our hands,” Tanya said.
Sam nodded. “Yeah, man, I really don’t want to be around when that fucker wakes up.”
Lucy didn’t say anything. She just kept eating.
“We’re going to need new boats,” Tanya said after a short silence.
I felt a pang of loss for the Big Easy. She’d seen me through some bad times and good times.
“Maybe we should get bigger boats next time,” Sam suggested.
A quote from Jaws came to mind but I kept it to myself.
“Why do you want something bigger?” Tanya asked. “Are you trying to prove something?”
Sam scoffed. “No, I just thought that more space would be nice.”
We fell into a short silence again which was broken, surprisingly, by Lucy. “What do you think Bunker 53 is like?”
“No idea,” I said.
“I think I saw something about the emergency bunkers on TV once,” she said. “They had everything. Like, swimming pools and gyms and even shops. All hidden away behind doors that were impregnable. Totally secure from whatever danger there is outside.”
I recalled our conversation when she’d said she wanted to feel safe and wondered if she wanted to live somewhere like Bunker 53. It was probably everything she’d been talking about.
“Yeah, I read about them somewhere,” Sam said. “The government chooses a cross-section of society and tells them about the bunker. Then, when the shit hits the fan, those people go there and become the future of the human race or something. The survivors of whatever tragedy takes place. I’m pretty sure a lot of politicians get to go there too, so the future of the human race doesn’t seem so great after all.”
“Imagine being locked away from all this tragedy, though,” Lucy said. This was the most animated I’d seen her in a long time. “Imagine knowing you were safe from all this crap.”
“Booooring,” Sam said.
“At least you wouldn’t wake up every day wondering if it was your last,” she told him.
“Dude, any of us could die on any given day and not just because there are zombies in the world. You could have a heart attack, get cancer, or fall off a cliff. Every day could be your last no matter where you are.”
She looked out of the window at the aircraft hangars and ignored him.
That put a dampener on the conversation and we again fell into silence. When Hart appeared five minutes later, he was a welcome relief from the tension that had descended over the table.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he said. “Marilyn got in contact with Bunker 53 and they won’t let Dr Ives come here.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
Marilyn is worried about letting Vess’s body off this island but she’s had to concede that Ives may be able to do something important if she has access to it. As you said, Alex, Locke did specify her and he must have done so for a reason. So we’re taking the body to Bunker 53.”
“We?” I asked.
“I’ve been told to put a team together. We’ll be carrying out this operation under the strictest safety measures. Any of you are welcome to join the team.”
We all nodded. Sitting around in a government cafeteria wasn’t really our style. even Lucy seemed eager to go, although I wondered if that was more to do with her desire to
see what Bunker 53 was like than to deliver Patient Zero’s body to Dr Ives.
“We’ll meet in the lecture hall in half an hour and go over the plan,” Hart said. “Here are your replacement badges so you can get through the doors. Just follow the signs to the hall and I’ll see you there.”
He placed four laminated cards onto the table. They were identical to our old ones with our names, photos—they’d used the same photos they’d taken last time—and the Ministry of Defence symbol, a crowned wreath encircling crossed swords, a bird, and an anchor.
“Are these bugged too?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “All of our badges have locator chips. Don’t complain, Alex. If not for us picking up your location, you’d still be stuck on that roof in Frinton.”
He had a point. I attached my badge to my T-shirt.
“Do we get weapons too?” Sam asked.
Hart grinned. “Of course. After the operational briefing, we’ll get our gear together and head out.”
Sam nodded. “Excellent.”
“See you in thirty,” Hart said before leaving the cafeteria.
“Working for the government again,” I said as the others pinned on their badges. “This wasn’t how I saw my future when I was at college.”
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Sam said. “This is only a temporary gig, just like before. If we play our cards right, we can get some sweet weapons and some more ammo.”
“I wonder what they’re going to call this operation,” Tanya wondered aloud.
“How about Operation Wake the Dead?” I asked.
She hit my arm again. “Don’t even joke about that, Alex.”
“Okay,” I said, rubbing the sore spot where she’d punched me. I may have meant it as a joke but that joke hid a fearful truth. I was worried about what might happen if Vess woke up while we were transporting him to the bunker.
Marilyn MacDonald was right; Vess must never be allowed out into the world. If he woke up and we failed to stop him, anything he did, anyone he killed, would be on us.
Not that we’d be alive to know about it.
15
The name of the operation was Operation Charon. It was written on a whiteboard that had been set up in front of the stage in the auditorium. Next to the whiteboard was a large flat screen.
The name of the operation made sense. Charon was a figure in Greek mythology who ferried souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. That was what we’d be doing; ferrying a dead soul.
I just hoped he stayed dead.
Hart stood by the board, along with a white-coated woman who introduced herself as Dr Lake. As a medical doctor, she was the closest Site Bravo One had to a scientist so she’d been given the task of reading the papers from the footlocker.
Three members of Hart’s security team sat on the front row of seats. Hart introduced them as Josh Hamilton, Caroline Waters, and Andy Fletcher. They were all dressed in blue T-shirts and black cargo pants like Hart and—also like Hart—they were in good shape and looked like they meant business.
“Operation Charon,” Hart said, pointing to the title on the board. “A simple transportation of cargo from this island to Bunker 53. The only difference is between this and any other run of the mill transportation operation is that this cargo might wake up en route.”
In any other situation, that might have got a laugh from the audience. But this was sombre business and everyone was silent.
“We take the cargo via Chinook helicopter to this area.” A map appeared on the screen that showed the coast of Western Cornwall. “Here,” Hart said, pointing at a spot a few miles inland from Land’s End, “is where Bunker 53 is located. Takes one hour to get there from here. Once we arrive at the bunker, we drop off the body to a Dr Sarah Ives. Then we leave and return to base. Any questions?”
Caroline Waters spoke up. “What are the safety measures in place to ensure our survival if the cargo wakes up, sir?”
“Good question,” Hart said. “Vess’s body is inside a metal crate. We are going to place the crate inside a small metal cage. If Vess wakes up and gets out of the crate, he’ll still have the cage to deal with. I’m not saying the cage will hold him but it should give us enough time to kill him.”
“Kill him?” Josh Hamilton asked. “If we’re going to kill him, then why not just do it now and save ourselves the bother of transporting him to the bunker, sir?”
“Killing Vess is a last resort,” Hart said. “The blood and tissues of his body are unique. They might even hold the key to defeating this bloody virus someday. The ideal situation is that Vess ends up on an operating table surrounded by scientists who can study him and come up with something that will put an end to this situation the world finds itself in. We’ve fashioned vaccines before and they worked with varying degrees of effectiveness, but with access to Patient Zero, the scientists could come up with something really life-changing.”
“Understood, sir,” Hamilton said.
“Listen, we’re not taking any chances,” Hart said. “We’ll have guns trained on the crate for the entire flight. If anything goes wrong we shoot to kill. Those are MacDonald’s orders. We cannot let Vess escape into the world under any circumstances. Does everyone understand that?”
We all nodded.
“Before we leave, Dr Lake has a few words. Maybe this will impress upon you how important that body is.”
“Thanks, Ian,” Dr Lake said. She addressed the room. “I’ve been studying the papers that came from Camp Victor. It seems that Brigadier James Gordon—the man in charge of the camp—has been doing some experiments of his own. Well, his scientists have, anyway. But instead of using Vess’s blood and tissue to formulate a vaccine or antidote, they’ve used it to develop a bomb.”
A shocked hush fell over the room.
“A bomb?” Sam asked. “You mean a bomb to drop on the zombies, right?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Gordon’s scientists have developed a biological weapon that delivers an airborne version of the virus. From what I can tell from the notes, any human beings that breathe the airborne toxin become savage killing machines.”
“Like the hybrids,” I said.
“Not quite. Those affected become like Patient Zero. He’s faster than any hybrid, and more deadly. And instead of simply biting or scratching to pass on the virus, he kills instantly by tearing his victims’ heads from their bodies.”
I closed my eyes and remembered my friend Johnny Drake. He’d been killed by Vess, his head and spinal cord ripped from his body.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would they make a weapon that turns people into killing machines?”
“Gordon is a military man. He thinks in terms of power and weapons to achieve that power. I understand from checking the records that he was about to be forcibly retired by the army. He served in the Middle East some years ago and did good work there but lately he was becoming more of a nuisance to the powers that be in the military with his xenophobic attitude and increasing paranoia. When the apocalypse hit, his retirement was forgotten. The army needed every soldier they could get their hands on.”
She shrugged. “It looks like Gordon used the situation to create his own private army, made up of soldiers who thought like him, and began his own private war.”
“A war against whom?” I asked. “The undead?”
Dr Lake shook her head. “No. Some of the papers I’ve looked at were from his personal journal. He welcomes the zombie apocalypse. He believes it will weaken the enemies of Britain and that he’ll be a national hero when he uses his bomb to destroy what’s left of those countries. When this situation is finally over, Gordon wants Britain to be the only country left standing. And then recolonisation of the world can begin.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “If he wants to destroy other countries, how is turning their populations into murderous zombies going to do that? Those places would become uninhabitable because of the murderous zombies.�
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“He’s planned for that,” she said. “The airborne version of the virus kills its host after five or six hours.”
I nodded, understanding. Now it made sense. Set off the bomb and create killing machines. The killing machines kill everyone else and then they themselves die, meaning no one would be left alive. And then Gordon’s army steps in to take over.
“So do the killing machine zombies kill the shambling zombies as well?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” Dr Lake said. “I don’t think Gordon knows either. His scientists wanted to carry out an initial trial of the weapon but they needed to do that in a place that was contained in case anything went wrong. From the notes, it doesn’t look like they’ve performed that trial yet.”
“Thank God,” Hart said. “Once we get back from Bunker 53, taking down Brigadier Gordon and Camp Victor will be our next priority.”
“I have a question,” Lucy said, holding up her hand.
“Of course,” Hart said, “What is it?”
“What’s Bunker 53 like?”
“I have absolutely no idea. As far as I know, it’s a survival bunker, not a facility like this one or our old place. The people inside are just supposed to survive, nothing else. That’s why they wouldn’t send Dr Ives here; the people inside the bunker won’t leave until the apocalypse is over. I didn’t even know they had scientists there until you arrived and mentioned Ives.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “Thanks.”
I wondered if Lucy was going to be coming back with us from the bunker or if she was going to try and convince the authorities there to let her stay. I couldn’t blame her if that was the case but I’d miss her terribly.
There was a time in my life when I’d have thought that the best way to deal with an apocalypse was to ride it out locked safely away inside a bunker. It would almost be a dream come true as long as they had plenty of food and video games.
Undead Rain (Book 5): Survival [Revenge of the Living Dead] Page 8
