by Tes Hilaire
And suddenly it clicks. Not rampant spread, rampant outbreak of the S-strain.
“Wait a minute. You’re saying we did this to ourselves? That we created the S-strain?” And because the symptoms didn’t evolve fully for hours afterwards…
John nods.
“Holy crap. You weren’t kidding were you? We fucked our own people.”
John looks at me levelly. My gut is churning with the same sort of sick disgust I feel every time I have to feed. To think that we had done this to ourselves. That one mistake could be the cause of so much agony and such utter destruction.
Why not, Eva? Life is full of bad judgments and shit-happens moments.
Behind us there is a clang. I jump, my head swiveling around.
“The lift,” John says.
A moment later there are footsteps and then a pair of boots step into view. I look up into Convict’s drawn face.
“Hello, Brice,” John says without turning around.
“John.” Convict’s gaze travels over at me. “Private Harper.”
“Sir,” I try for polite and professional—after Blaine’s hopeful hint, I really want to remain on Convict’s team—t hough I needn’t have bothered, his attention is fully back on John.
“Commander Derwood needs us back up in the conference room.”
I tense. Being called back so soon cannot be a good thing.
John swivels around, pushing up from his perch and then moving across the grating to Convict. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“There is a situation.” Convict sighs. “Nellis Air Force Base—one of our safe zones,” he adds, probably for my benefit. “There was a distress call, and then we lost contact.”
12.
I wrap my hands around the nylon straps of my shoulder harness, careful to keep my gaze on the cockpit floor. No chance of looking out the open bay that way. Crap, I think I’m going to be sick.
Someone yells over the racket from the chopper’s engine and blades. “Looking a little green there, fangs.”
I blink, slipping my gaze up to the back of the helicopter where Brian is strapped in. “And you’re looking a little ugly.” Which he is, with his crooked nose, scraggly beard, and pitted skin, he has the kind of face only his mother would love.
His lips twitch, but then he gives a little salute. Round three goes to me. Yippee-ki-yay.
The helicopter flies on, the roar of the blades tamping down all but the occasional pointed comment. Probably helps that everyone here is too busy with their own thoughts. We have no idea what to expect when we arrive at the base. Best case scenario, there’s some major technical malfunction that’s taken out their communication. Worst case scenario, they’re not there anymore…and whatever took them out is.
“Do you know where you’re going to want me to set us down?” Herbie, our NASCAR driver turned pilot, asks from the cockpit.
“Let’s head for the airstrip. Best visibility,” Convict answers.
The helicopter does a twist and a drop as Herbie brings us onto our new course. My stomach lurches in the other direction.
“Holy crap. Look at that,” Blaine exclaims.
Without thinking, I crane my head around to look out of the opposite bay. The tummy turning angle we’re coursing on has me immediately averting my gaze. Still, it’s long enough to get a picture of the moon-drenched base below. It looks like a bomb dropped, annihilating everything around the base but leaving the base itself intact. Probably not far from the truth. Nellis Air Force Base is a fortress under siege, this ring of destruction its moat, and no one—aka no zombie—is getting across it without being seen and mowed down, or blown to smithereens.
I risk another glance, twisting my head to see further back towards the city itself. What I see shocks me. The war zones extends to the southeast, like a runway of destruction that leads straight to the hollowed out and crumpled giants of the strip, an occasional eye-beam or two lifting up like a corpse’s skeletal fingers imploringly at the sky.
The sheer level of destruction hits me in the gut. Even if we win this war, will anything of the past be left?
No, I answer myself. There is no going back. At least not for me. One night, one moment, and my life has been irreversibly changed.
“The infection didn’t hit Las Vegas until well after the California outbreak,” John says, drawing my thoughts away from the morbid path they’re treading. “They were prepared, had already locked down the airports and blocked off the city.”
I open my eyes, looking across the helicopter to John. “So Las Vegas is zombie free?” I ask, my lip curled into a sarcastic twist.
“No. Somehow the virus got in, but at least they were prepared for it here. Curfews, shelters, quarantines. It was contained.” His gaze drifts out the window. “Somewhat.”
We fly on in silence, the helicopter dipping closer and closer to the ground as Herbie zeroes in on our target. I have to give Herbie this: If it has an engine, he can make it move.
Someone coughs and my attention is drawn to Juanita sitting beside me. I was surprised to see her waiting in the ready room. Now I’m both glad and worried. Glad because this mission will be a good diversion for her misery. Worried because I don’t think she’s ready for it. She seems sunken, hollow, and but a step or two away from the mindless zombies we’ll be facing when we land. Least she won’t try to eat us. Doesn’t mean she won’t pull something stupid and put us all in jeopardy.
Blaine sighs loud enough that with my acute hearing I hear him over the helicopter blades. “Never been to Vegas before,” he yells over the roar. “Always wished I would get to go. And you know what they say about wishes.” He flashes me a conspirator’s grin. As if I would understand this. I don’t, but I nod before turning my attention back to the floor.
Another point for Juanita being here, she’s between me and Blaine. Makes ignoring him easier if not exactly excusable.
The helicopter slows its forward momentum, the tip of its nose leveling out as Herbie carefully sets us down on the abandoned runway.
As soon as the blades cut off, there is a general clamor of seatbelts being unstrapped and guns being primed. I wait for everyone else to stop their primping and then shift past Juanita to the side door.
“Ready?” Convict asks, his eyes on me.
I nod, Glock in hand as I wait for him and Matt, another member from Rodriguez’s team, to slide open the door.
Warm desert air greets me, bringing with it the scent of blood, both new and old. Mixed in is gunpowder, gasoline and yup, my favorite, decaying flesh. Despite these scents, the only thing I see nearby is the moon-bathed field of sand, cracked pavement, and tufted grass. No holes. Good, the airfield itself was not laden with mines. Would make sense seeing how they were obviously using some sort of aircraft to make their strikes on the downtown.
I twist my head, ears pricked for sound as I study the outline of the base’s buildings across the airfield. Something’s got to be here, somewhere. And this is why I’m in point position, to be the first collector of intel. I have a feeling that if it weren’t for my little ability to sense nearby life forms—geez that was Trekkie—then Convict would have gone through on his threat to have me off his team. He hadn’t liked me before I’d fed in front of him, but the proverbial cold shoulder I’ve gotten from him since says something far more poignant than the grumbling objections he’d voiced in the beginning of our acquaintance.
“Well?” Convict asks, his tone impatient.
I shake my head. “Nothing. No live things, anyway.”
“All right. Let’s move out.”
I leap down, moving off a few dozen feet to make room for the others. Matt is the first one out, then Blaine and Juanita, John and Brian, Convict, Rodriguez. Lastly comes Herbie and Roy.
“Do you want me and Roy to stay with the helicopter?” Herbie asks hopefully.
All I can do is close my eyes and pray for patience. I mean, really? Does he honestly think Convict will agree to that after the stunt they tr
ied to pull down on B-level?
“No. If it’s a technical problem, Roy needs to be in there with us. And if it’s not, then we need all the guns we can get.”
And I guess that’s why Marine keeps Brice on as team lead. Whatever else, Convict knows how to use his soldiers.
We start across the field, a band of skittering gazes and tense trigger fingers. Even I’m keyed up. Though I know there isn’t any immediate threat. There’s something off here, and I don’t just mean the lack of the greeting party. Damned if I can figure out what it is though.
Blaine slows, his head tipped back, star counting. “God damn that’s a gorgeous full moon.”
John’s hands shift on his rifle, his lips white as he gazes into the sky. “No, not full.”
I glance up, squinting to see the almost negligible sliver carved out on the one side. I have to agree with Blaine, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a full moon. Not that it matters, the sky is not where our attention should be.
“Where are the bodies?” Roy asks.
I stop, my gaze snapping around to the scrawny computer geek at the back of our group.
That’s it. That is the something I’ve been missing. We haven’t seen a single zombie corpse out here. As if those within the base didn’t even bother to try and defend their safe zone. I could buy that standard practice would probably have those inside the base removing and disposing of the corpses to keep down both the smell and the threat of disease, but if this had been a last stand resulting in a lock-down of their facility, then no one should have made it out here to clear the bodies yet.
I’m not the only one shocked to a halt by Roy’s rather innocuous question. We’re all staring wide-eyed at him.
I blink, trying to slow my racing thoughts. “Could it be like what happened back at base? That they had a breakout on the inside?”
“Maybe,” Convict replies, but his mouth thins into a doubtful line.
Juanita seems to buy this theory with a sort of gleeful menace. Her gaze has fallen on the entrance to Nellis’s command center, an unholy light gleaming in the depths of her dark brown eyes. “What other explanation could there be?”
Convict shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
He gestures us forward into the abandoned streets. Not once do I hear a heartbeat other than our own and soon enough we are at the doors of the building Marine had mapped out for us.
Convict depresses the intercom button “Base, this is Team Leader Harold Brice out of Edwards, please respond.” This is met with static silence. He tries again with the same results. Not that any of us had expected differently, but hey, as my dad would say: hope springs eternal.
Off to the left Herbie lets out a long whistle, his left arm lifted, sleeve pushed back as he studies his Velcro watch. “Oh my, look at the time. Guess since nobody’s home we should be heading back...”
“Really, Herb?” John snaps.
Herbie lifts his hands quickly, shifting back a few inches. “Hey. Just joking.”
John takes a step toward him, jaw tight and shoulders rigid as he invades Herbie’s personal space. “And I’ve just about had it.”
Wow. Unflappable John is flappable. Guess I knew that, just hadn’t expected it now. I mean, yeah things are tense, but that seems to be the sort of situation John thrives under.
“Enough, boys,” Convict says then turns his back on them, his gaze honing in on Roy. “Come on, kid. Time to earn your keep.”
I take another look at Roy. A good long one. I’d pegged him as a young computer geek, figuring him for somewhere around twenty, but now, taking in the downy tuft of hair on his upper lip and the fresh breakout of acne across his chin, I realized that I’d misjudged. He can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. All of a sudden his whole I-don’t-want-to-be-here attitude makes a lot more sense. He doesn’t want to be here. He’s not one of Marine’s kickass recruits. He’s probably some poor kid from C-level who’d gotten too old to justify the free ride any longer. In a world gone mad, everyone has to earn their keep. And now its Roy’s turn. Poor bastard.
Roy’s wide eyes catch mine for a moment, his throat bobs. I look away, afraid he’s going to see the pity there. I don’t want to feel pity for Roy. I want to be able to count on Roy. Just like I want to be able to count on Convict to not order us into an impossible situation, Brian to not stake me between the ribs, and John to have my back. Maybe I’m asking a lot, but this is why I joined this gig. Forget the safe-house excuse; the truth is that I just don’t want to go it alone.
Roy edges past Convict, sliding in between John and me.
It doesn’t take him nearly so long this time and within seconds the lock is clicking off, the door sliding open. Roy scrambles back as the first waft of stale inner air hits my olfactory senses.
Blood, rotting flesh, and something else, something that it is so familiar that I almost miss it: Sweet almonds.
Someone says something behind me, but I don’t know what or who. I’m staring into the yawning opening into the dark hall beyond. My hands tremble on my Glock. The urge to turn and run is overwhelming and for a moment I think I’m going to. Then Convict’s hissed question finally penetrates.
“What is it? Do you sense something in there?”
I swallow, looking over at John who’s drawn up to flank the door beside me. His nose is pinched, his eyes practically glowing as he stares at me. Waiting, like the others, for me to answer.
“I, uh…” the words stick in my throat. Maybe I’m wrong. The scent is faint, even more now that the first back-draft of air has passed. And, it could just be me, though I’ve been told I have more of a chocolate covered almond smell. I draw in another deep breath, this time through my mouth. I can taste it: the death, the gleeful violence that occurred here, and there, across the back of my tongue is the candied almonds. He was here. And if not him, then the Queen herself. They both have the same unmistakable scent. Why were they here? This is far afield from the hive’s area of control. Were they searching for me or were they simply hunting? Maybe both. I’d come this way. When I was running I’d zigzagged across much of the southwestern states in an attempt to hide my trail. I never came into Las Vegas itself, but I’d come close. Could they have been following my trail and stopped off here to look for me? Heck, for a snack? Did I bring destruction down on these people simply by passing by?
“Eva,” John says, drawing my focus back to the here and now. “There’s nothing alive in there, is there?”
I shake my head. No, nothing alive. Not even anything undead. Even if I’m right about what happened here, the ones who did it are long gone. No heartbeats, and as I’ve said before, even a vampire’s heart beats.
John shifts, his shoulders squaring as he faces down the hall again. “Let’s go then.”
I don’t want to follow. Even knowing that there is no actual danger, I don’t want to have to face what “my kind” has done. More so, I don’t want my teammates to see what a group of vampires bent on blood can do.
I trail along behind John. The lights flicker on, bathing the hall ahead of us. Motion sensors, of course.
I’m all but numb as we trudge through the halls, knowing that I should say something, tell the others what I already know. If nothing else, brace them for what is to come. But I can’t seem to do it. Let them find out on their own.
And then watch out for Brian’s knife.
I shudder, looking around at the universal gray walls of the airfield’s command building. Halls and doors. Why are these places always mazes? We continue on, following the map that my heightened senses provide. Always deeper, closer and closer to the harshest scent of blood and death. I know that behind some of these other doors lay a body or two but that’s all they are, bodies, no heartbeats. And besides, Marine said the control room would be in the center of this building, so that is where we go.
We come to a set of double doors. These doors don’t need Roy’s doohickey. It automatically slides open revealing the command center within. Jo
hn and I step in. I stop just inside the room, the light—activated by the activity—flickering on as the others file in behind us.
“Holy shit,” Blaine exclaims. “What happened in here?”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy taking in the violence of the room. Blood stains the grey interior. Bodies, torn and shredded, are draped and splattered across work surfaces and floor. It is a massacre. These people never had a chance.
Something in the back of my mind is ringing an alarm. This is not right. There is too much blood. Even if angered, a vampire wouldn’t waste so much of a precious commodity.
My gaze flits through the room. Over there is a body that’s not torn up. I swallow hard. The corpse is pasty white and there, in its neck, two telltale pricks. I scan the rest of the corpses, counting up the “whole” bodies. Six, out of maybe thirty. Who, or what, killed the rest?
John is moving through the room, his nostrils flaring as he stares down at the shredded corpses. He’s not the only one. Brian is bending down over one of the mostly whole bodies.
“Brice, look at this.”
Convict moves over alongside Brian, looks down at the two small holes in the neck that Brian is pointing out. His gaze immediately flashes to me. Hard, cold, lethal. I’d freeze if I wasn’t already, but I’m still stuck just this side of the door.
Brian looks up at me too, his brow cocked in a disdainful manner. “Friends of yours?”
“No.” I shake my head adamantly. Not friends. Enemies.
“Are you denying that a vampire did this?” Brian asks.
I know what he’s getting at. The implication is that if I’m a vampire and a vampire did that then… Anger heats my frozen muscles. I clench my fists, otherwise I’m afraid I’m going to leap across the room and prove him right.
“You think you’re so damn righteous, don’t you? Well I got news for you. You’re nothing but a bigot. I’m not like them. I’ve never been like them and I’ll never be like them.”
