“On me,” he whispered in Bannon’s ear, and then nudged the door wide open and stood stiffly for long seconds, his body tensed and poised, his weapon sighted as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the heavy gloom.
He was standing in a small foyer. There was a plastic potted plant in the corner and a photo of a beach scene in a frame on the wall to his left. Ahead of him was a narrow stairway, leading up to the next floor. The stairs were carpeted. Paul took three cautious creeping paces towards the bottom step with Bannon and Sully crowding close behind him. Sully closed the door and used the potted plant to hold it shut.
The room smelled of exotic oils and scented candles.
Paul glanced over his shoulder at Bannon and held up one hand like a cop stopping traffic. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed. Bannon nodded.
Paul went up the stairs in a crouch, taking slow measured steps, keeping his center of balance low, weapon tucked into his shoulder. He reached the top floor and then disappeared from sight for several minutes. When his head finally reappeared at the top of the landing, Bannon felt himself visibly relax. The soldier beckoned Bannon with a curt wave of his hand.
The top floor of the building was partitioned into three cubicle offices. Each of the dividers was a low wooden wall topped by a long glass panel. The first sectioned off area held a small white desk, chair and a couple of filing cabinets. Behind it, long massage tables dominated the two larger areas. The walls were lined with shelves of candles and perfumes and bottled oils. Bannon turned in a slow circle, taking everything in.
“It looks like old Sylvia Marchant was running a brothel,” Sully smiled, his face gruesome, his voice low and hushed. He stood in one of the larger cubicles and tested the firmness of the massage table’s padding with a prod of his hand.
“Maybe,” Bannon said in a distracted whisper. He had known the woman who ran the business. She was a legitimate massage therapist, but he didn’t bother correcting the other man.
It no longer seemed to matter. Sylvia Marchant was either long gone… or undead.
Paul went quickly through the desk drawers and found nothing of use. He stepped down a narrow hallway towards a closed door. He pushed it open. It was a small bathroom – just a washbasin and toilet, tiled floor, white walls. There was a curtained window set into the far wall, the glass inserted in a series of opaque louvers. He twitched the fabric aside and stared through one of the slits to the ground below.
It was almost dark, but he could see an alleyway with an overflowing industrial trash receptacle and a stack of plastic crates. He stepped back and studied the window more closely. It would be tight, but it would do, he decided.
He went back down the hallway.
“There’s a window in the bathroom,” he said quietly to Bannon. “That’s the escape route if needed.”
Bannon looked alarmed. “We just jump out the window?”
Paul nodded. “It opens onto an alley. There’s a trash bin dumpster…”
Bannon lapsed into doubtful silence for a moment. “What about the downstairs door?” he asked at last. “Should we barricade it with the filing cabinets?”
The soldier hesitated. Carrying the metal cabinets down a flight of stairs was bound to make noise.
“No,” he said at last.
Bannon flinched. “You’re just going to leave a potted plant to hold the undead back?”
“No choice,” the soldier said grimly. “If we make noise, a couple of filing cabinets might not be enough to hold them back anyhow. Our best chance is to go very quiet and hope they don’t stumble over us.”
Paul set his automatic rifle down on the desk. The soldier was weary – bone weary. The adrenalin still fizzed in his blood, but now the immediate danger had subsided, he felt heavy. He closed his eyes for an instant – just long enough to draw a long deep breath – and then exploded into sudden violence.
Sully and Bannon were standing in a tight knot facing him. Paul lunged at Sully, taking the big man completely by surprise. The momentum of the soldier’s attack drove Sully staggering back against a wall. Paul threw a wicked right-handed punch that caught the seaman clean under the jaw. Sully’s head snapped back and a sudden growl snarled on his lips. The special forces soldier was one of the world’s elite. He kicked out at Sully’s knee with the heel of his boot, and the big man staggered. Paul hit him one last time, a punch that began low down at the level of his waist, and was swung with all his weight and momentum. It struck Sully flush on the temple and the big man’s peculiar yellow eyes rolled up into his skull. He started to teeter, jaw hanging slack. The soldier propped Sully upright against the wall and spun him round like a cop in the midst of a take-down. He wrenched Sully’s hands behind his back and snatched cable ties from a canvas pouch on his webbing belt.
“What the fuck?” Sully snarled. Paul had hit him with everything he had, but the big man had not fallen.
Paul cinched a thick cable tie around Sully’s wrists and then strapped another one in place. He had his knee in the small of the man’s back. He stepped back warily.
“What the fuck?” Sully turned round, and his face was swollen and gruesome with his outrage. He bunched the muscles in his shoulders and strained against the ties, to no effect. Thick cords popped out along his neck. He gritted his teeth and hissed at the soldier.
“What the fuck!”
Paul stood back, his breathing quick but controlled. His knuckles hurt. He stared at Sully with stone cold eyes.
“I don’t fucking trust you,” Paul said. “That’s why you’re tied.”
Sully’s expression became monstrous. “You fucking came back to rescue me!” he seethed. He shot a savage glance at Bannon, and then back to the implacable gaze of the soldier.
Paul shook his head. “We didn’t come back to rescue you,” he said deliberately, and there was a streak of cruel harshness in his voice. “We came back to capture you.”
Sully gaped. Bannon visibly flinched. He stared appalled at the soldier for long seconds. “I wasn’t told –”
Paul dismissed Bannon’s protest with a sneer. “You weren’t told that we never wanted your wife, either,” he said.
Sully’s mouth tugged into a grim snarl. “What do you want with me?”
“The labs want you,” Paul said. “My orders are to bring you back. You’re a freak. You survived a zombie bite – the only one so far. That makes you valuable,” Paul shrugged his shoulders without emotion. “The researcher teams want to cut you up and use you to find an antidote.”
Chapter 4.
Paul nudged Sully into a corner of the room with the barrel of his rifle. The big man slumped down until he was sitting uncomfortably. The office was gloomy with the quickening shadows of night. Sully hung his head, staring bleakly at the floor between his boots. Bannon paced the room uneasily.
Paul propped himself on the corner of the desk, his leg swinging like the tail of a dangerous predator. He had the automatic rifle across his lap.
Bannon reached into one of the pouches of his chest rig. “I have a flashlight… You packed it before we left the base.”
Paul shook his head. “No flashlight,” he said. “Too risky.”
“Well, could we light a candle or something?” Bannon asked. “Otherwise we’re going to end up sitting in the dark.”
Paul narrowed his eyes for a thoughtful moment. The office was secure. There was only the door downstairs and the narrow window in the toilet at the end of the hallway. “Sure,” he said slowly. “Set it on the floor in front of the freak.”
There was a cigarette lighter on a shelf in the first therapy cubicle. Bannon tucked it into his jeans pocket, then snatched up a candle and brought it into the office area. The light from the candle was a pathetic little flicker. The wavering glow caught the hard ridges of Sully’s brutal face and cast them into deep malevolent shadows.
Paul reached for a canvas-covered bottle clipped to his webbing. He unscrewed the cap and sipped.
“Drink?” he offere
d the canteen to Bannon. The water was cool. It trickled across Bannon’s swollen tongue and washed away the dirt and vile taste that had soured in the back of his throat. He sipped sparingly, the soldier’s eyes watchful and measured. Bannon handed the bottle back reluctantly and licked his lips.
“Thanks.”
Paul set the bottle down on the desk.
Bannon shrugged his shoulders. “Now what do we do?”
Paul turned his eyes to Bannon, and there was grim resolve in the tightness of his expression. “We wait,” he said, and glanced at his watch. “An evac chopper will be back to pick us up at zero six hundred hours. Until then we do nothing. Nothing to make any noise, and nothing to draw attention to ourselves.”
The hours crept by slowly. No one spoke. Bannon stared at the guttering candlelight and once, when he looked up, he saw Sully glaring at him. The big man’s expression was unfathomable. Sully’s skin looked waxen, as though it had a sheen of perspiration spread over it. The grey flesh seemed to hang from his skull in softening pouches, and his eyes looked out from deeply sunk sockets.
Bannon looked away. Paul was checking his weapon. The soldier finished the inspection and laid the gun down on the desktop. He reached into a holster for his sidearm.
“What kind of a gun is that?” Bannon pointed at the rifle and asked with no real interest other than to while away a few more minutes.
Paul considered Bannon’s question for a moment. “It’s an HK-416, which is the gas operating rod version of the M4 carbine,” he said. “It’s more reliable than the standard M4, and the gas regulation means it never fouls.”
… which meant nothing at all to Bannon.
He pulled the Beretta out of the waistband of his jeans. “This is the gun John gave me,” he said. “Should I keep it?”
Paul nodded. His own sidearm was the same model. “Did you fire it?”
Bannon shook his head. Paul checked the weapon quickly and handed it back. “It’s good to go,” he said gruffly. “You’ve got fifteen rounds. Don’t waste them.”
Chapter 5.
Bannon woke with a choked cry in his throat, lurching awake on the cubicle floor with his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Paul was crouched over him, his eyes wide, shaking his shoulder.
Bannon sat upright, staring at the walls as though surprised and mystified by his surroundings. The faint glow of the candle cast creeping shadows around the small room.
Bannon blinked – his eyes were red, raw and stinging. He scraped his fingers through the tangle of his hair and then froze as the sudden memories and nightmares of the day came rushing down upon him in a procession of sickening waves.
“What time is it?” he croaked.
“Oh three hundred,” Paul whispered. He had the M4 in one hand, and his expression was tightly strained. “You need to get up. Now.”
He hauled Bannon to his feet, grabbing him roughly by the webbing of the chest rig. “There’s something moving around outside,” the soldier said. “I just heard sound.”
Bannon came alert instantly, a tingle of fear chilling down his spine. “Outside?” He clutched for the Beretta, but Paul seized his wrist and shook his head. He leaned close to Bannon’s ear and his words were barely a breath.
“Right outside the door. Stay right fucking here and watch the freak. I’m going down to investigate.”
The soldier pulled back, saw Bannon nod his head, then glanced over his shoulder as if to check the office one last time. Sully was sitting brooding in the corner as though he had never moved. He was watching Bannon’s expression, the big man’s eyes dark and sullen. Paul went down the stairs, one creeping step at a time, disappearing into the darkness beyond the flickering reach of candle flame.
Bannon stood perfectly still, staring down the staircase. He saw vague shadow – a lighter darkness against the inky black. Then the two merged together. He held his breath, and there was a cramp of raw fear across his face.
For a long time nothing happened. Bannon found himself staring into utter silence. Finally he heard a whisper of sound – a soft creak of movement – and his heart started pounding inside his chest.
He saw a vertical wedge of grey light appear, and realized it was the downstairs door slowly opening. Bannon’s eyes grew wider. He took a wary step away.
Was something coming in?
He leveled the Beretta, holding it in a two-fisted grip, and aimed at the empty space at the top of the landing, waiting for something gruesome to slowly emerge from the shadows. He held his breath, felt a trickle of sweat run down his back.
Nothing happened.
Bannon waited.
From the corner of his eye he saw Sully move slowly, stretching his legs out in front of him and rocking gently from side to side as if to alleviate tired muscles. Bannon’s eyes flicked nervously back to the stairs.
“Steve,” Sully said suddenly, making no effort to hush his voice. “I need to talk to you.”
“Shut up!” Bannon winced. His jaw was clenched and the words came through gritted teeth.
Sully shook his head defiantly. “I’ll be quiet, when you agree to talk to me.”
Bannon looked appalled. His eyes went very wide. He felt a sickening surge of panic. “You’ll get us killed!” Bannon croaked hoarsely. “Shut the fuck up.”
Sully narrowed his eyes, cunning and calculating. “I need to talk to you – now,” He said, and his voice became a rumble.
Bannon glared at him and then Sully saw the moment of capitulation. Bannon’s shoulders slumped. The man nodded his head.
“What do you want?” Bannon whispered hoarsely.
“I want you to let me go.”
Bannon shuffled closer, still with the Beretta held distractedly guarding the top of the stairs. “You’re fucking crazy,” Bannon gasped. “I can’t let you go.”
Sully was glaring at Bannon with cold, seething rage simmering just below the surface of his expression. Then, in an instant, his entire demeanor altered.
“Steve, look at me!” Sully suddenly implored, and there was a desperate passion in his strained voice. “Jesus, Steve! It’s me – your best friend.”
Bannon stared. Sully was on his knees, and in his eyes was a fervent appeal for mercy. The edges of the bite that had been torn from his neck looked blackened and rotting in the gloomy light, and Bannon could see a livid purple bruise that reached up around the man’s jaw and down across his shoulder. The veins in Sully’s neck were swollen beneath dry stretched skin.
“You can’t let them do this, Steve. You know what will happen if they get me back to a government lab. They’ll cut me into tiny pieces. They’ll torture me like an animal. I’ll be dissected… it will be cold-blooded murder.” Sully’s gaze filled with raw fear and despair. “My blood will be on your hands.”
Bannon felt himself faltering. His resolve began to waver. He shook his head at last. “I’m sorry, Sully. I can’t let you go. Millions of lives could be saved.”
Sully snarled suddenly and he licked his tongue across his blackened, cracked lips.
“Shoot me, then!” he barked. He tried frantically to break his hands free of the thick cable ties that bound him. “Put a bullet through my brain! One shot! At least fucking kill me before those bastards cut me open.”
Sully’s breathing was ragged, his face swollen and dark with outrage. His eyes were wide and wild, like a great predatory beast. “Do me a favor. Kill me!”
Bannon gaped, his expression stricken. He could feel cold damp sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. He clenched his jaw and screwed up his resolve, so that the next words he muttered sounded harsh and ravaged. “I can’t do that.”
Sully’s mouth twisted into a grimace of animal hate…
… and then a sudden scuffling sound – the sinister sound of heavy steps dragging – screeched across Bannon’s frayed nerves. He flinched. His eyes snapped huge and fearful. He felt the thump of his heart beating like a drum, and his palms were suddenly slick with sweat.
Sully heard the sound too. His voice broke off and his infected gaze turned ominously in his head…
… towards the top of the stairs.
Bannon saw a hand first. It seemed to manifest from out of the pitch black, reaching out like a claw towards him – a bloodied, broken hand. The fingers were gnarled, the skin streaked with dirt and gore. Bannon choked down on a sudden gasp of panic. The Beretta trembled in his grip.
And then Paul’s haggard, pale face appeared like some gruesome, ghostly apparition. The soldier’s features were racked tight with agony, his lips curled into a grimace. There was a thin trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. He stood on the top step, somehow limp and unsteady – and then his knees buckled and he crumpled to the office floor with a grunt of gasped breath that sounded like it had been punched from his lungs.
Bannon dropped the weapon and grabbed at the special forces soldier. Paul slid down the wall until he was lying on his back.
“Jesus! Are you okay?” Bannon drew back and stared hard into the soldier’s face. Before his eyes, blisters of sweat welled up along the width of the man’s brow.
“Just a scratch,” the soldier whispered. “My arm.”
Swiftly Bannon tugged at sleeve of the man’s uniform until he was staring at a small cut, just below his left elbow. The limb was swelling, becoming bloated and discolored. Spider webs of veins around the wound began to purple and thicken like cords of rope beneath the tight skin.
There was very little blood. The soft fleshy lips of the cut pouted sullenly, but when Bannon tried to squeeze the flaps of skin back together, the gash began to weep a trickle of yellow puss that reeked of stinking corruption. Bannon felt a creep of black despair wrap its talons around his heart and squeeze the breath from him. He looked across the dark room to where Sully sat unmoving, his face impassive, his eyes seeming to glow in the flickering light of the candle.
Bannon shook his head sorrowfully, and then screwed his eyes shut…
… so that he didn’t see Sully smile, sly and gloating.
Dead Rage Page 15
