‘We know containment was breached at the DSD, and that you knew it could not have been an accident.’
‘Yes.’
‘Our experts managed to retrieve some electronic fingerprints. Peterson uploaded a form of virus to the system and your prints were all over it.’
‘Mine?’
Williamson nodded. ‘You were being framed. They needed someone to take the blame.’
‘They?’
‘Would you say Aberdeen’s situation was a natural phenomenon?’
‘No.’
‘We’ve reason to believe the carrion virus is a deliberate infection.’
‘Terrorists?’
‘Not in the conventional sense. Not radicals or fanatics. A group that’s well-funded, well-organised, with people in key areas.’
Dr. Holden’s shoulders sank. ‘I can’t believe it. All the deaths.’
Williamson offered Holden a glass of red. He accepted and sipped heavily.
‘So what happens now?’
‘Now, we wait. You go to ground under our protection. You and another person, a female journalist.’
‘You think this is likely to happen again?’
‘We’re putting together a force. Eric Mann will lead it. I need your expertise. We’re working on the side of good, doctor. There’s no blurred lines here. Join us.’
Dr. Holden pushed his glasses up to his forehead. All he ever wanted to do was protect people from the unseen enemies of disease and infection. He was so tired. This carrion city stripped the best from him. ‘We need to save lives.’
***
Gemma shared a lift with two soldiers, and took a moment to memorise their look and manner. All details that would slot into future reports. She found Williamson’s room and knocked. Muffled voices and footsteps. The door opened. A man stood before her, hunched and pale. He pulled his glasses down from his forehead.
‘He’s expecting you.’
Gemma caught sight of the man’s ID badge. Dr. Eugene Holden. DSD clearance.
‘Gemma,’ Williamson called out. ‘Come in. Close the door behind you.’
The room was large. A table pushed to the wall held laptops and satellite phones. Gemma took Williamson’s outstretched hand, his grip strong and tight.
‘Sit down. I’m sure you have many questions.’
‘A few,’ she replied.
‘Well, let me just say that I’m pleased you decided to sign up with us. Trust me, you made the right choice. Drink?’
Gemma shook her head.
‘Gemma, the story that you’ll eventually break will be the biggest in fifty years, I guarantee it. The world will change after all this is made public. For better or worse, who can say, and the retainer fee that we’re paying you is quite generous.’
Gemma slid back into the sofa. ‘How did you know about me? About the story I was collecting.’
Williamson snatched up his wine glass, swirled the liquid around. ‘I have a lot of people working for me. They hear a lot of things. I want us to trust each other, Gemma. It was your editor.’
‘Lewis? He talked to you?’
Williamson smiled. ‘Seemed the gagging order was not going to keep you still.’
Gemma rubbed at her forehead. ‘So what’s my job now?’
‘You’re tenacious. Hungry for the story. You’ll be poking about where you’re not welcome, investigating and gathering information. You’ll have a certain amount of independence, but will always report back to me. Nothing gets released without my knowledge.’ Williamson placed his glass back on the table. The corners of his mouth tightened. ‘Gemma, nobody can know what you’re up to. Not family, not friends. Should the situation improve in Aberdeen and you go back to work at the newspaper, you’ll still be working for me. The way things are now, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. It’s not always going to be easy or pleasant but it will be worth it. Don’t look so scared, Gemma. This is what you wanted.’
It was but it stung that nobody would be able to know what she was doing. Not yet anyway.
‘We’ll meet again.’ Williamson nodded toward the door. She had been dismissed.
‘I just want to thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Williamson.’
‘We’ll talk again soon.’
***
Eric kicked off his boots and laid back in bed. Draping an arm over his face to shield his eyes from the light, he let out a deep breath. He was lucky to be alive. Lately, it seemed people around him died all too easily. The city was crazy, there was no sense to be made of it. At first, he had accepted what he was told with some disbelief but now, reflecting, it was mindboggling. How could it all be real? He thought of Jacqui, of the kids, and he wanted to be home. He wanted to pretend nothing was wrong in their lives. He would have called her but communications were still down.
A knock came at the door.
‘Gemma. What can I do for you?’
‘Thanks for saving my life. Can I come in?’
‘Gemma, you don’t need to do this.’
Gemma laughed. ‘No, you big galoof. I’m not here to thank you in that way. I’m just saying, thank you.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’
‘Yes you did.’
‘No I—’
‘You did,’ she said with a singsong tone.
‘Okay, you got me.’
‘So, can I come in?’
Eric motioned her into the room.
‘I never thanked you properly.’
‘No thanks is needed. I was just doing my job. You somehow got mixed up in something that really didn’t concern you.’
‘Now it does concern me. I’m signed on with Black Aquila, and have a warm room here, and lots of soldiers to make sure I’m safe. So, thank you.’
‘Is there something else?’
Gemma stared out the window. ‘It almost doesn’t seem real, don’t you think?’
‘I do.’
‘Yeah, everything that’s happened out there. It’s weird, I feel kinda detached. I know it’s happened, I’ve got the pictures and film … and the memories. All of it. All of what I did out there. Just crazy. I left my friend out there, did you know that?’
‘I’m sure she’s fine. Everything that’s going on right now is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, too, and I’ve been through crap before.’
‘She’s not fine. I know she’s not.’ Gemma looked back. ‘I never said anything earlier, it didn’t seem appropriate, but I know who you are. You were captured in Iraq. I remember seeing you on TV. I saw your wife and brother doing the press conference.’
‘My five minutes of fame.’
‘I hope your family isn’t in the city. You’re not from around here, right?’
‘They’re safe down south. I wish I was with them.’ His mind went to the empty bottles of vodka, his frightened kids, his brother’s work in the garden, and the boxes of photos in the spare room.
‘When you get back home, hug them tight, don’t let them go.’
Eric walked her to the door. Gemma planted a light kiss on his cheek. ‘That’s not what you think it is.’
‘I know,’ he said with a smile.
***
The barn conversion lay just outside the military blockade. Patrols would come close, but not investigate the half-renovated structure. Brutus pressed a thick gauze to his face. He shouldered the unlocked door. Andor Toth stood over a glowing fire pit.
‘You’re late, Richard.’
Brutus hated when Toth used his real name. ‘I kinda got hung up.’ He pulled the gauze free, revealing the ragged slash.
Toth took Brutus’s face in his hand and turned it towards him. ‘Looks worse than it is.’
‘Took a shot to the arm. Hurts like hell.’
‘We’ll get that seen to soon. Did everything go to plan?’
‘The weather cleared enough to allow air support. We needed more time for the infected to roam but—’
‘Peterson?’
‘Dead.’
&
nbsp; ‘What about Eric Mann?’ asked Toth.
‘Still alive.’
‘Our superiors don’t like loose ends. Eric and his team were to be eliminated.’
‘I did what I could.’
‘My superiors don’t like failure and they would hate to think your past relationship with Eric Mann clouded your ability to complete your mission.’
It was a threat, but Brutus went through most days receiving one from somewhere. It did nothing to intimidate him. Brutus was not a man to scare easily. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Now, you’re a wealthy man, Brutus. We sit in comfort and observe the fallout from Aberdeen for the next few months. After that,’ Toth smiled, ‘you don’t need to know that yet. Let’s just say, you’ll be very busy. Take a seat, we’ll be out of here soon.’
Brutus sat on a workbench, and thought of the money. He knew what to spend it on. A holiday, somewhere hot. He’d seen enough snow for a lifetime. Besides, he had to enjoy the money before the world went to hell.
The End
Read on for a free sample of Zombie Inc.
Prologue
“Look at it! Look! At! IT!”
Carl looked to where the angry homeowner–clad only in an open bathrobe and loose boxers–pointed. Not that Carl needed the direction. The problem was plenty obvious.
Two legs waved sluggishly from a sewer grate in the curb.
“Yessir, I see it,” Carl said, and propped his hands on his hips. He hadn’t brought the trainee with him from the car. Not yet. He wanted to get a good rapport with the homeowner and an audience or any show of bureaucracy about to swing into action would only infuriate the man further. “Did the collar not pop him at all or don’t you know?” Carl smiled a puzzled half-smile. An ‘I’m just doing my job here, buddy’ smile.
“I don’t know,” the homeowner said on an outrushing sigh as his shoulders relaxed. “I came out this morning to get the paper and saw him kicking around in there.”
Carl and the homeowner turned their gazes back to the legs. A low moan issued from the grate, echoing and lost. It still had its head. That much was obvious. They couldn’t groan like that without their heads.
“Well, you were lucky. I can tell you that,” Carl said. He scratched his ribs and nodded thoughtfully. He made some notes on the clipboard. This was a nice neighborhood, at least one in every five or six houses still standing. This guy was either government or he worked at one of the power companies.
“Don’t I know it! Sucker coulda come right after me if it hadn’t tumbled into the sewer there. I was hardly awake!” This time, the homeowner’s squawk was excited, a ‘can you believe it? I can’t believe it!’ exclamation.
“Huh. You were lucky for sure. No question about it,” Carl said. Big house, landscaped nice. Plenty of money here. Good grid system, expensive. The houses on either side and across the street were burned to the ground. Anything unoccupied after the plague had been demolished to control infestation and looting.
Three more zombies stood in the front yard, spaced out like checker pieces. They moaned and swayed, their attention fixed on the two men. One quarter of the yard was conspicuously empty.
“Well, let me get this written up and taken care of for you,” Carl said. “How’s the rest of the system been? You’ve had it–what? Six months or so? Any problems?” He liked to ask this to remind customers that there were, in fact, very few occurrences of this nature.
The homeowner shrugged. “Nope, no problems. Wife hates it, but…” He shrugged again. His belly, a pugnacious basketball, rose and fell. “The ladies are a little soft sometimes. You know. They don’t understand security as well. That’s why I made sure we got all menzies.” A small, unconscious moue of disgust crossed the guy’s face, and Carl understood it. He and the homeowner were probably about the same age, early fifties. Same generation, at least. Some of the terms nowadays: menzies, womzies, kidzies…there was something decidedly wrong with a term almost of endearment associated with those shuffling monstrosities. “She didn’t even want us to have guns in the house much less these here yard zombies.”
Carl nodded in sympathy, but of course, his thoughts went to Annie, his wife. He’d lost her twenty-six years ago now, in the first wave. She’d been so young. They’d all been so young.
Carl shook off the thought and put his hand out. “I’ll be in touch, but take my card. My scan code is right there. Call if they haven’t set you back up in a few hours.”
“Well, thank you. Thanks. I’ll do that.” The homeowner pulled his bathrobe together and bent to retrieve the paper. He went up the driveway, whistling. The remaining zombies–one on one side and two on the other–tracked his progress with their hungry, empty eyes.
Newspaper, Carl thought. Guy must have the big bucks. Probably a government worker, then. Four yard zombies just in the front? Most likely eight out back. Totally unnecessary, but that’s overzealous sales for you. Maybe Candy. She’d be just this guy’s type. He probably hadn’t been able to get his nose from the woman’s cleavage long enough to say no. Course, he wasn’t one of the millionaires, the really high-ups. Those people all had Ze Sheds. Much more attractive than having corpses standing around your yard twenty-four seven. At least with Ze Shed, you could put the damn things away once in a while.
Not that anyone was having garden parties.
Not anymore.
Carl grinned and went to retrieve the trainee and the clipboard. Hopefully, the kid had brains enough to do some of the prelim paperwork. Most likely not, though.
Trainees weren’t known for their overabundance of brains.
ONE
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The SUV was a Mazda Zecon with black-tinted windows and a complete black wrap with the Zombie, Inc., logo on each side in white, an Assessment Team scan code on each door panel, and a photo-realistic, life-sized horde of zombies plastered across the entire back. Classy, Carl thought and popped the passenger door open. The trainee sat in the driver’s seat, wide eyed and shaking. She had a small Ze Cross!® gas canister crossbow and bolt trained unsteadily on Carl’s head.
Carl raised his eyebrows. “Don’t get out much, Dillalia?”
She l
owered the bow and breathed out a long, shaky whistle of air. She smiled, but even the smile was tentative. Carl had come to believe that people of Dillalia’s generation were hardened, insensitive. Not this one, though. She was smallish, not more than five four. Thin but strong looking and neatly turned out in the ZI Assessment Team uniform of white button-down Oxford, and tan khakis. It was an old-fashioned outfit, a throwback to the ’20s and before, when service-people in many fields wore such things. Of course, Carl remembered when men (mostly) had worn them in earnest. It hadn’t been a uniform back then, it had just been business casual.
“It’s ze-cedure, though,” Dillalia said. Her tone was questioning. She was looking for confirmation, instruction. “It’s right in the handbook to be on the defensive when you’re in the wild.”
Carl snorted and slid heavily into the passenger seat. “The wild, huh? That what you kids are calling it these days, Dill?” He shook his head. “That meant something entirely different when I was your age.”
“Right, I know. Jungles and stuff.”
Carl snorted again. “Well, kind of. Not really, though.” He shot her a look. “And please don’t call it ‘ze-cedure’ again. Just call it ‘procedure’–call it what it is. Believe me, all the ‘ze’ this and ‘ze’ that is not going to catch on if it hasn’t yet.”
“But the handbook–”
“The handbook is ninety-nine percent crap once you’re in the field,” Carl said. “File it away for the information regarding health care and whatever, but I’ll tell you one thing right now that will help us get along–don’t contradict me with handbook bullshit. Okay?”
Dill nodded, her face untroubled but intent, and Carl wondered what his reputation at ZI had become. Of course, everyone in Field Assessment was considered a little bit of a loose cannon. Assessment was the front line, the ones who left the safety of the ZI compound to do the dirty work. Assessment decided next steps, further measures and compensation. It took a lot of training, a lot of practice. There had been two trainees before Dill that hadn’t made it. One dead, one quit, and they both went against Carl’s record. It wasn’t bad over the course of a career to lose one or two, even four or five depending on how long you were training and the adversity of your territory, but to lose two in a row had been bad luck.
Carrion Virus (Book 1): Carrion City Page 23
