But something inside me had changed and I no longer wanted to hide away. There was too much to do, too many people to help. How would I feel if the entire world went to hell while I sat safely inside a bunker and didn’t try to help in some way, no matter how small?
I still didn’t blame Lucy if that was what she wanted to do but it wouldn’t suit me at all. Not anymore.
Hart clapped his hands together once and said, “Right, if there are no more questions, let’s get our weapons and get to the chopper.”
16
Twenty minutes later, we were in the Chinook and heading to Bunker 53. This time we were all wearing flight helmets to block out the noise of the rotors and to enable radio communication between ourselves.
Despite the radios, no one spoke. Our attention was firmly fixed on the small metal cage, and the crate within it, that had been strapped to the floor of the helicopter. So far, the crate had been quiet but I realised that even if Vess was pounding on the inside right now, none of us would hear it due to the noise in the Chinook.
The first clue we’d have to his revival would be when he punched his way through the crate.
We were all armed with L119A1 Close Quarters Battle Carbines. This rifle was much shorter than the M16 and much more manoeuvrable in a tight space. The muzzle of every gun was pointed at the cage.
The only time I allowed my attention to wander from Vess’s crate was when I glanced out through the tail ramp—which was open—at the countryside rolling past beneath us. The pilot had been instructed to fly low in case we had to discharge our weapons and that meant I could see a lot of detail as we passed over the landscape.
Most places looked abandoned. The roads were strewn with empty cars and some houses we flew over had been burned for some reason. We passed over three hordes of zombies that were concentrated in small towns. The creatures either roamed aimlessly or stood stock still in the dormant state.
The only other movement I spotted was a convoy of military vehicles driving along one of the roads. The smaller vehicles seemed to be escorting two four-ton lorries so I assumed they were taking survivors to some camp or other.
When we reached our destination and the Chinook began its descent into a quarry, I felt relieved that we hadn’t had to fire our weapons in the chopper. Despite the manoeuvrability of the CQB rifles, it would have been too easy to end up caught in a crossfire from someone aiming at Vess.
The Chinook landed and we all piled out. Waters, Hamilton, and Fletcher carried the cage, to which someone had thoughtfully attached leather carrying straps. We were standing in what looked like a normal quarry. I looked around the area for some sort of door or passage that would lead to Bunker 53 but saw nothing of the sort.
Hart was similarly scanning the area with a frown on his face. “Must be here somewhere,” he muttered. Taking out a slip of paper from his pocket, he consulted it and pointed at the southernmost edge of the quarry. “It’s somewhere there, apparently.”
We made our way to the rock wall and discovered a number of camouflage nets that had rocks and gravel applied to them to make them look like part of the quarry wall.
Pushing them aside, we came face to face with a large steel door that was at least twenty feet wide and twelve feet high.
“This is the place,” Hart said. He found a small console on the door that housed a single metal button. He pressed it and we waited.
Looking closely at the area around us, I noticed a number of small cameras attached to the rocks, all pointing at us.
A male voice came from the console. “Yes?”
Hart leaned closer to the console and spoke. “Ian Hart. Site Bravo One. You spoke to my superior Marilyn MacDonald regarding the delivery of a package.”
“Hold on.”
There was a tense few minutes of silence during which we all trained our attention and guns on the cage. This was the worst possible place for Vess to escape. If he got out here and we didn’t stop him, he’d be free to go anywhere, do anything. We should have left him in the Chinook until we knew the people in the bunker were going to let us inside.
Finally, there was a buzz and the clanking noise of disengaging locks. The door swung inward slowly, revealing a wide cement corridor that ran into the earth, sloping slightly downwards.
There was no one there to greet us. We proceeded through the door and it swung shut behind us, the heavy locks engaging again. The corridor was lit by pale yellow lights set into the ceiling.
The same male voice that had spoken to Hart through the console now came out of a tinny speaker on the wall. “Continue individually to the green line.”
I noticed a green line painted on the floor twenty feet ahead of us. Beyond that was a second door identical to the one we’d just passed through.
“You first, Alex,” Sam said, pushing me forward.
“Why me?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, dude. If they kill you, we’ll avenge your death.”
“That’s hardly comforting,” I said. I stepped up to the green line and stopped. I noticed a couple of cameras on the walls beside me. Scanners?
“There are no weapons allowed in the bunker,” the tinny voice said. “Please place your weapon in the bin to your left.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “You know what’s in that crate, right?”
“The crate will be dealt with presently. Please place your weapon in the bin provided.”
I turned to Hart with a questioning look on my face.
He shrugged. “I assume that as soon as they open the next door, their own security team will guard the cage. The quicker we get through this, the quicker their security will come out here.”
Feeling as if I was making a terrible mistake, I placed the CQB rifle into the large plastic bin and waited.
“Step forward to the white line,” the voice told me. The white line was painted just in front of the second door. I moved to it and waited while the others went through a similar process and joined me one by one.
Finally, we all stood before the second door. I found it ironic that they weren’t letting us inside with weapons but they were allowing Patient Zero into their precious bunker.
The door clanked and slid open. I’d expected to see the interior of the bunker beyond but the cement corridor simply continued downward at a slight angle.
“Let’s move!” Hart said. “We need to hand over the cargo ASAP.”
We all took hold of the cage—four people on each side—and jogged along the corridor. We were totally unarmed now thanks to the bunker’s security system and if Vess got out, we had no way to stop him.
I finally saw something ahead. Another door. But beside this one, a lighted booth was set into the wall and behind its Plexiglass window sat a large man with receding hair. He was surrounded by computer consoles that showed the view from each of the cameras in the quarry and the corridor and a microphone through which he’d been speaking to us.
“Welcome to Bunker 53,” he said. “As you requested, Dr Sarah Ives will be along shortly, as well as Charles Hines, the head of our little community.”
He pressed a button and the door opened. Muzak floated out through the opening, as if we were about to enter an elevator. But instead of an elevator, the door opened onto a large blue-carpeted waiting room, complete with chairs whose upholstery matched the colour of the carpet and low tables upon which sat small stacks of magazines.
It seemed like the people in this bunker were trying to pretend the world wasn’t going to hell. Knowing what I knew about the world outside made the waiting room seem surreal.
A door opened and a man and woman entered. He had collar-length black hair and wore a shirt and tie. I placed him in his forties.
The woman was much younger, probably early twenties. She had shoulder-length red hair and wore glasses. She also wore a white lab coat, which was encouraging at least.
“Dr Ives?” Hart asked.
She nodded. “Yes, I’m Dr Ives. I understand you wanted to se
e me. Something important, I was told.”
“Perhaps we could conduct this conversation somewhere else,” Hart suggested. “After you get your security team to lock the package securely away.” He indicated the cage on the blue-carpeted floor.
“We’ll get right on that,” the man said. He held out his hand to Hart. “Charles Hines. I’m in charge here.”
“There’s no time for pleasantries,” Hart said, ignoring the proffered hand. “We need to get this locked up now.”
Hines frowned. “I was told it’s a dead body.”
“It’s dead at the moment,” Hart said. “There are no guarantees it’s going to stay that way.”
Hines’s face paled. “And you brought it here? There’s been some mistake. You can’t bring a...whatever that is...in here.”
To his credit, Hart stayed calm when, through gritted teeth, he said, “Get your fucking security team in here now and tell them to lock this up immediately.”
I looked down at the crate. Was I imagining things or had I heard a noise coming from within the metal walls? It had sounded like a soft bump but it had been so low that I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard anything at all.
“All right, all right,” Hines said. He went to a console on the wall that matched the one on the outer door and pressed the button. “Sam, can you get a couple of security guys to the reception room, please? And get them to find a room they can lock. One of those old offices on level 3 will be great.”
“Don’t you have any cells?” Hart asked.
Hines scoffed. “Why would we need cells?”
“In case you need to lock someone up.”
Hines looked at him askance. “I can assure you that we don’t lock people up here. We are a peaceful community of survivors. The future of the human race, in fact. When the new world emerges from this current situation, there will be peace for the first time since mankind began.”
He opened the door by which they’d entered. “Now, if you follow me, we can sort out this mess.”
“The cage,” Hart said.
Hines rolled his eyes. “Will be picked up shortly. You heard me call for security. Now come with me, please.”
Hart turned to us. “I’ll go with Hines and Ives. Stay here and make sure his security put the body somewhere safe.”
“There’s no need for that,” Hines said from the corridor beyond the door. “My men are quite capable. Now follow me. All of you.”
I looked at Hart. If I was going to take orders from anyone, it was him and not Charles Hines. Hart simply shrugged and said, “Hopefully they’ll get the crate locked away quickly.”
We followed Hines and Ives along a carpeted corridor that looked like it belonged in an office block rather than a secret bunker beneath a quarry and through a door into a small room that housed an oval conference table and a dozen chairs.
“Take a seat,” Hines instructed, speaking as if we were a group of accountants about to discuss a quarterly budget and not survivors of the most horrendous apocalypse to affect the human race.
“Can I get anyone anything?” he asked when we were all seated. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“I’d love a coffee,” Doctor Ives said.
“Coming right up, Sarah.” He went to a coffee machine and began to fill it.
“Mr Hines,” Hart said, “We really need to discuss the matter at hand.”
“Very well,” Hines said once he’d got the coffee machine going. “What exactly is the matter at hand, Mr Hart? I was told by Marilyn MacDonald that you were bringing a dead body here and that Dr Ives was to be informed of its arrival as soon as it got here. Is that what’s happening here or not?”
Hart shook his head. “No, it’s not. There seems to be a mix up in communication somewhere.”
“Well, I will admit that when I spoke to Miss MacDonald, the line was terrible. The network isn’t what it used to be, you know. But I got the gist of what she was saying.”
“No,” Hart said, “I don’t think you did.”
Hines frowned. “Are you telling me that the body in that crate is not one of Sarah’s dead relatives?”
Now it was Hart’s turn to frown in confusion. “What?”
“A dead relative. We have them delivered here from time to time if they were in military service so they can be buried in cemetery. It gives our community members some small comfort to be able to visit the graves of loved ones. As long as the body isn’t infected, we’re glad to add it to our cemetery.”
“You have a cemetery underground?” I asked.
Hines nodded. “Yes, it’s quite lovely. Angelic music playing at all hours and dimmed lighting. Perhaps you’d like to see it before you go.”
Before I could answer, Hart cut in. “Mr Hines, the body in that crate is the body of Patient Zero.”
Hines, who had filled a mug with coffee and was bringing it to Dr Ives, visibly paled and dropped the mug. It shattered on the floor. “No, no, no. We don’t talk about such things in this bunker, do you understand? It isn’t good for the mental wellbeing of our people. We don’t discuss the outside world’s...problems.”
Hart stood up. I could see that frustration was getting the better of him now. “Well like it or not, the outside world’s problems are now inside your bunker. We were told to bring Patient Zero here and deliver it to Dr Sarah Ives.” He pointed at Ives. “That is you, correct?”
She nodded meekly. “Yes, but why would you bring such a thing to me? There’s some mistake.”
“Aren’t you a scientist?”
She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. I teach chemistry to the children here. I’m a teacher.”
“One of our best,” Hines added. “The kids love her.”
A deathly silence descended over the table as we all tried to make sense of the situation in our minds.
“Wait a minute,” I said, suddenly realising something. “You said dead relatives are brought here if they were in military service.”
Hines nodded. “That’s right.”
I turned to Ives. “And you thought that was one of your relatives being delivered?”
She nodded again. “Yes, that’s what I thought.”
“Who did you think it was? Which of your relatives is in the military?”
“My father.”
“What’s his name?”
“Locke,” she said. “Sergeant Terry Locke.”
17
“We’ve been sent on a wild goose chase,” I told the others. “Locke didn’t send us here because Dr Ives is the best person to deal with Patient Zero’s body; he sent us here because he wanted to give her exclusive access to it. Probably thought she could improve her career prospects or become a hero or something. I don’t know.”
“My dad sent you here?” Ives asked.
“Yes,” Hart said. “He made us think you would know the best thing to do with the body. Made us believe you were a scientist.”
“He was always pushing me to do better,” she said quietly. “When I became a teacher, he was disappointed in me. He said I could be a world famous scientist and that I was wasted in teaching. But I like working with children. I didn’t want fame. And when I got married and we had our son, there was no doubt left in my mind that education was my calling. Dad was always trying to push me to do better but he never asked if that was what I wanted.”
“The bloody fool!” Hart said. “He arranged to have vitally important material and documents sent to his schoolteacher daughter because he wanted her to do better? Fucking ridiculous.”
“He obviously didn’t know the body was slowly coming back to life,” I said. “He didn’t know the danger he was putting everyone in.”
“It doesn’t matter if he knew it or not,” Hart said. “He’s put countless lives in danger with his stupid bloody actions.”
“Danger?” Hines asked, still pale. “Coming back to life? What’s happening?”
Hart looked at him with steely eyes. “Just tell me your men have pu
t that body somewhere secure.”
“They’re taking it to the disused offices on Level 2. Those doors have locks.”
“What kind of locks?”
Hines shrugged. “The kind you find on an office door.”
“What kind of doors?’
Hines pointed at the door of the room we were in. “The same as that one. Wooden office doors.”
“Tell me about your security team.”
“What about them?”
“Are they armed?”
“They have pepper spray and truncheons but I assure you they hardly ever use them. The crime rate here is—“
“We need our weapons,” Hart told him.
“That’s not possible. Weapons aren’t allowed in the bunker. I told you, we’re a peaceful community.”
“You’ll be a dead community if we don’t get our weapons.”
“They’re in the bin by the outer door, waiting for you to collect them when you leave.”
Hart left the room and we followed him to the waiting room. The door that led to the cement corridor was locked.
“Open this door,” Hart told Hines.
Hines went to the console on the wall. “Sam, open the reception room door, please. Our guests are leaving.”
“We’re not leaving,” Hart said. “We’re getting our weapons and coming back inside.”
“Not possible,” Hines said as the door clicked open. “I cannot allow you to bring weapons in here. If I let you do it, then someone else will want to do it as well. Where will it end?’
“Listen closely to me,” Hart said. “There’s a fucking monster in your bunker. Pepper spray and truncheons aren’t going to touch it.”
We walked out through the door and Hines said to the man in the booth, “They’re leaving, Sam.”
“Very good, sir,” Sam said. He pressed some buttons on his console and the next door opened, along with the door that led outside to the quarry. Obviously Bunker 53’s exit protocol was nowhere near as strenuous as its entrance procedure.
Survival- Revenge of the Living Dead Page 9
