Errol's Folly

by Dave Brown

  He turned his attention back to his friends. The siren was too loud for her to overhear their conversation. She started down the hall looking for someone from her own crew. She found Jones and Barbara standing together around a corner. When they saw her Barbara reached her arms out for Anne and they hugged.

  “Errol and Hayes are upstairs talkin' to O'Neil,” Jones said, raising his voice to be heard over the siren.

  Anne looked out a nearby window. There was nothing to see in the darkness. “Do you think some of... them... got out?”

  Neither of her friends said anything at first, and the siren seemed to get louder with each insistent bleat. “I don't know what else it could be,” Jones finally said.

  There was nothing left to say at the moment, so they simply stood there together. Patty found them a few minutes later, but she didn't seem interested in talking. The siren cut off after that, and the sudden silence was like a pressure on Anne's ears. She was just thinking about heading back to her room when Errol, Hayes, Seung Jin and Harry O'Neil came hurrying down a stairwell.

  “What's up, boss?” Jones asked. The way he said it brought Anne's earlier speculations about him rushing back to the front of her mind. He sounded like he was just waiting for a situation to handle.

  “There are some people missing,” Errol said.

  “Pelozar, his crew and your Miss Devoux,” Harry said. “On top of that, there's no response from the hospital. We have no idea what's going on in the lab.”

  “Jones, we're going to need your help,” Errol said.

  The Texan just nodded.

  Harry was agitated. “You know what we're working on down there. If something happens to that research...” He shook his head. “We've got to find out what's happening, make sure the work is safe.”

  “Easy, hoss, I'm already on board,” Jones said, and his eternal cool had the effect it always did.

  Chapter 28

  Spotters on the roof of the barracks couldn't see anything moving outside. Harry said that when the alert button was hit in the lab, all the doors in and out of the facility were automatically locked. It didn't rule out the possibility that the things had gotten out before the alert, but they decided the risk was necessary.

  Errol walked in the middle of the group, the pistol Jones had given him held down toward the ground. Anne, Patty, and Hayes walked with him in a tight square. Jones and Harry were in front and Seung Jin brought up the rear. Barbara had wanted to come but Jones insisted she stay behind. Errol understood why but didn't know who else among them knew the couple's secret. Probably Hayes, and maybe Anne since she and Barbara were so close.

  It was just after one in the morning. Until they left the barracks, the island was in near total darkness. When they were ready to leave, Harry had called somebody on one of the barracks' telephones. Thirty seconds later a series of floodlights had blazed to life outside. Now the group walked quickly toward the clinic, trying to keep a set of eyes covering every possible angle in the harsh lights.

  “How many of those things are in the lab, Harry?” Jones asked.

  “Forty-one,” the scientist answered.

  “Seven missing from the barracks, that's forty-eight. How many people on duty in the lab and the hospital?”

  “Uh,” Harry sounded unsure. “Six, tops.”

  “Okay, so fifty-four on the high end,” Jones said, sounding like he was calculating nothing more important than how many place settings were needed at a banquet. His calm usually helped Errol, but he was slightly disturbed by it now. Thirteen of those fifty-four might still be alive. “We can handle that just fine if we're careful,” the Texan continued.

  Something else was bothering Errol, and he dropped back a bit so he was walking next to Seung Jin. “You want to tell me why Renee is one of the ones missing?”

  “I'm not sure what you mean,” Seung said.

  “Why is your secretary out of bed after midnight at the same time as a planning committee member and his bodyguard squad?”

  Seung said nothing, but in the brightness of the floodlights Errol could see the man's jaw working. He was wrestling with something. “Miss Devoux had a background in intelligence gathering before the fall. She offered her services to me when New Taiwan was founded and she continues to work for me in that capacity.” He turned quickly to his left, probably checking a sound, but there was nothing. “I asked her to keep an eye on Pelozar tonight. My guess is he went to the lab for some purpose and she followed him.”

  Errol was stunned. He had suspected the very thing Seung had just told him, but hearing it spoken aloud gave it a new weight. “Was she gathering intelligence on me, too?”

  “That assignment finished a week after it started, when your people demonstrated their sincerity in wanting to help us.” Seung spoke in a very professional manner, but he suddenly stopped and looked at Errol in a different way. He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “I assure you, Errol, her feelings for you are genuine. She told me as much.”

  Errol nodded, feeling a small amount of relief but not surprised that his insecurity only shrank rather than disappearing. He had never been very good at romance. A noise from the darkness drew his attention and he chided himself for worrying about his personal problems at a time like this. Get everybody out alive, he thought. Then you can deal with the rest of it.

  The clinic looked strange in the glare of the floodlights, but it was quiet when they approached the door. Jones had Patty pull it open while he covered the opening. There was no need. The front area was empty. Errol whispered in his friend's ear.

  “What do you think? Make some noise, see if they come?”

  Jones nodded. “Better to back off and fight them in the open than cramped up inside.” He waved Patty back and then let out a high clear whistle. “Soup's on! Come and get it!” No sound came from the building. They waited a full minute and then Jones dropped his hands. “Guess they didn't make it this far.”

  Harry walked inside. “The duty staff should be here. Why would they leave their posts?” The rest of them followed him in and began searching the rooms. Other than the missing staff, everything seemed perfectly normal. After they'd verified the building was clear, Harry picked up a phone at the reception desk and tapped out a number. “Yeah, it's Harry. There's nobody here. No, no trouble on the way over. Send John in with the rear team to hold the clinic, we're heading downstairs.”

  Errol remembered heading into the belly of an infested aircraft carrier. He and Reg had been careful to avoid the lifts. “Is the elevator the only way down?” he asked.

  Harry shook his head. “There's a concealed stairway near the rear entrance. Why?”

  Jones answered him. “'Cause if those things are down there you don't want to meet 'em in a little box with one exit. Good thinkin', boss.”

  The group walked together to the back of the building. The stairs were hidden under a floor panel that slid out of the way when Harry entered a code into an alarm panel. They descended about four flights before arriving at a heavy steel door. It was unlocked. Errol stepped to the front of the group before anybody could open the door.

  “We should know what we're doing before we go in there,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “Agreed,” said Seung Jin from the rear.

  Harry turned to the wall on the right side of the door. A map of the hospital was posted there beneath a sheet of hard plastic. “This is us,” he said, pointing to a red fire exit marker. “Our main goal is to get to the lab and secure the bacteria. The path to the tunnel is a straight shot.” His finger traced a line along the map to the opposite side. There was a door there marked “TO LABS.” Then he pointed at an open area off the main hall, closer to the tunnel entrance than the stairwell. “This is the duty station. The night shift is usually two up top and two down here. There's also a monitor station there. We can see if the cameras in the lab are working.” He shrugged. “That's it.”

  Errol looked at the group again. “We head to the duty stati
on and see what we can see. No splitting up, no wandering off.”

  “Errol, you and I will go in front, Seung in the back,” Jones said. “That puts a good shot on each end and an extra gun in front. Everybody else stay close together and in between the three of us.”

  “We ready?” Errol asked. They all nodded.

  “Same as before, Pat,” Jones said, training his weapon on the door. Errol stood to his left and slightly behind and watched anxiously as Patty grasped the door handle and pulled. The hallway on the other side was empty and quiet. He heard a loud sigh behind him, somebody letting out a held breath, and realized he was holding his own. “Okay,” he said. “Let's go.”

  They advanced down the hallway, slowing down whenever they approached an open side door so Jones could check it out before they passed. Errol remembered the sight of that poor kid on the aircraft carrier being yanked off his feet as he ran. In the tension of the moment, Errol found he couldn't remember the kid's name. Benny? Kenny? He shook his head, trying to clear the image away. He needed to stay focused. The only reason Jones had given him the third gun was that he was the only one besides Seung that had ever fired one.

  Why had Seung brought his own gun? Jones brought two and when they decided to make for the lab, Seung had produced one from a windbreaker pocket with as much fuss as pulling out a set of car keys. Had he been expecting trouble when they first came to the island?

  Damn it, Errol thought, focus! They were approaching an open area on the left, the duty station Harry had pointed out on the map. Jones was checking an open door to the right. Errol watched the station ahead and thought he saw a shadow move on the floor. He took a few cautious steps forward. A figure leaned out into the hallway and Errol panicked. He raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot was loud, the tiled walls bouncing it around in unexpected ways.

  “Holy shit!” yelled the figure, ducking down and covering its head.

  “Hold fire!” Jones shouted, putting a hand firmly on Errol's arm at the same time.

  “Albert?” Harry said, running over to the station.

  “Harry? What the hell?”

  “Sorry!” Errol called, his hands shaking.

  The group walked over to the station where Harry and the man Errol had luckily missed were talking.

  “What happened?” asked Harry.

  “About twenty minutes ago those guys that showed up this morning came down the elevator. They walked right past us and headed down toward the lab. Jenny told me to wait here and went after them. Then Ahmed and Xia came down from upstairs and went running off down the tunnel.” He threw his hands up. “Crazy! I stayed put and watched the monitors.”

  “What about my friend, Miss Devoux?” Seung asked.

  The man shook his head. “Haven't seen her. Anyway everybody ended up in the specimen lab and those guys all pulled guns out. There's no sound on the feed so I didn't know what they were saying but people mostly got out of their way. Greg was standing between them and the cages, holding his hands up. One of the guys pulled him out of the way and a couple more disappeared off the camera. Then the cages started to open and the Z's started coming out. The guys dropped nine or ten but...” He shrugged. “I saw the first guy get hit by the pack. He went down and started shooting all over, and then the feed went blank. A few seconds later the alert went off. I sealed the tunnel doors and then hunkered down.”

  “Why didn't you answer the phone?” Harry asked, and Errol detected an accusation in his voice.

  “I... I don't know. I was scared. I thought maybe it would be... somebody in the lab and they... I'd hear them, you know...” Tears started to glisten in Albert's eyes. Errol decided they had what they were going to get, there was no need to badger the poor man.

  “Okay,” he said, “looks like the plan hasn't really changed. We head down to the lab, save the research, get back out. Is there a map of the lab here?”

  Albert produced one from a file cabinet. Errol, Jones, Seung, and Harry looked it over.

  “We should try to clear it,” Jones said after assessing the map. “There aren't many branches to cover. Some of the things are already down, makes it that much easier for us. There might still be survivors, too.”

  “I agree with Mr. Jones,” Seung said. “He and I can take point. We know what we're facing. We go slowly, room by room. We can follow a path like this.” He traced his finger along the map. “That will ensure there are no surprises behind us.”

  “If you think you can do it then I think we should,” Harry said. The three men looked at Errol.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let's do it.”

  Chapter 29

  Patty gripped the handle of the tunnel door and looked at Jones. He and Seung were standing side by side, guns pointed at the door. There were no sounds from the other side, but that didn't mean much. Jones gave her a slow nod. She pulled.

  Red light flooded the hallway where the group was standing. “Emergency lighting,” Harry said from the back. Nothing was moving in the tunnel. Jones and Seung stepped through one after the other. A few seconds later Jones whispered, “Clear,” and the rest of them went through.

  The electric carts were gone, obviously left at the other end. Jones and Seung started walking quickly down the tunnel. It was a long straight passage so they could see it was clear all the way to the end. The group followed behind. Patty switched the claw hammer out of her right hand for a second so she could wipe the sweat from her palm. They were all carrying some kind of weapon. Jones had told them to swing for the head if they ran into any of the creatures. Z's, she thought. She liked the term used by the Midway residents. It made the things seem more detached from their human forms, like alien invaders in a bad movie.

  It took a few minutes to reach the doors at the end of the tunnel. They wouldn't budge at first. After peering through the windows, Harry said there was no movement on the other side and flipped open a panel on the tunnel wall. He punched a few keys and Patty heard a soft click in the door frame. She pulled very gently and found the door would swing freely. She looked at Jones, waiting for the nod again. When he gave it, she pulled a little faster than she meant to, losing her balance and thumping her back into the wall. Jones and Seung didn't seem to take notice, all their attention trained on the open doorway. The same red light suffused the inside of the lab. Jones stepped through, then Seung. The rest of the group followed. Errol gave her a thin smile and nodded her through before him. He knew how she felt, his own blunder still fresh in their minds.

  The lab complex was eerily quiet. Patty tried to put her finger on what was so spooky about it and then realized the air vents weren't blowing. Part of the alert system must have been to lock them down so no contaminants could escape out of the air ducts. Aside from that and the red light, nothing much had changed since her first visit. The same wheeled carts were stationed around the hallway, lab equipment sometimes arranged carefully and sometimes just tossed back after use. Some doors stood open, others were closed. Then she noticed the first thing out of place. A smear on the floor near one of the open doors. The red light made it hard to see, and that was the clue she needed to realize it was blood.

  “Jones,” she whispered and pointed toward the spot. He nodded and then gave a hand signal to Seung. The two of them made their way to the open door, and then stepped through one after the other.

  “Don't shoot,” someone said from inside the room.

  “Okay,” she heard Jones reply.

  “Greg?” Harry called, hurrying into the room. A minute later Jones and Seung emerged, already eying the next open door. Harry came out next, helping Greg Weizt hobble out. Patty looked down and saw the man's leg was wounded.

  “Greg? You okay?” Errol asked.

  The scientist shook his head. “I got bitten.”

  “Damn,” Hayes said from the middle of the group. He walked forward to check over the wound. “Bleeding stopped,” he said after a quick examination.

  “Yeah. I'd say I got eight,
maybe ten hours left,” Greg said and slumped to the floor against the wall.

  Nobody said anything. Jones and Seung were already a few doors down the hall, clearing as they went. Errol crouched down next to his new friend and spoke quietly in his ear. It was hard to hear but Patty thought he said, “Do you want me to... you know?”

  Greg shook his head. “We've already lost enough viable specimens. We can't pass up getting one back. The work is more important than my... I dunno, dignity? When you get the place secured just put me in one of the empty cages.”

  “Oh man,” Harry said, putting his head in his hands. “This can't be happening.”

  A quiet hissing sound from farther down the hall drew their attention. Jones was motioning for them to get moving. Harry helped Greg to his feet and they started off together.

  “What happened?” Errol asked as they walked.

  “Pelozar busted in and said he had to get rid of the Z's if he was going to bring people here. He figured the new strain is foolproof after seeing cage two and we don't need them anymore. I tried to explain but he wouldn't listen. Then he let them out, I guess to shoot them, and they did what they do.”

  “How'd you get tagged?” Hayes asked.

  “Somebody hit the alert and the doors started slamming shut all over the room. One of the Z's was half out of the one leading out here, wedging it open, feeding on one of Pelozar's guys. I tried to jump over it and didn't get as far as --” He stopped as a single gunshot cracked from a room up ahead. Jones was there, weapon pointed through the open door. He stood still for a second and then withdrew. Seung crossed to the next door, which was closed. Jones approached it, grasping the handle. The group was about ten feet away when he turned it. As soon as the bolt was clear the door burst open, sending Jones reeling. Seung fired once and then backed off. Three zombies had poured out of the room on the other side. Two had been Pelozar's men, and it was one of those that went down when Seung fired. The third was a woman. Patty guessed it used to be Jenny. The splatter of brain matter and bone from the creature in front stuck to the faces of the other two, looking like scrambled eggs in the red light. Patty's stomach lurched as she brought her hammer up, ready to defend herself. The two remaining creatures went straight for Seung, the closest meal available. He backed away, more nimble than Patty would have expected, moving farther down the hall so that their attention was turned away from the group. Instinct seized her and Patty trotted up behind the female. She raised the hammer above her head and then brought it down as hard as she could, claw end first. The twin metal prongs cracked through the skull. The creature jerked both arms and Patty yanked down as hard as she could, pulling it to the ground and cracking more bone.