The Dead Series (Book 2): Dead Is All You Get

by Steven Ramirez

  “Stop the government?” Pederman said. “Listen to yourself.”

  “We have to try.”

  “Every morning I’m grateful I hired you, Dave. And every night I regret it.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Holly said.

  I pretended to smile. “Glad to be of service. Seriously, we need to find that facility.”

  “Good luck with that,” Springer said.

  “I might have an idea how we can get started.”

  “Damn you, Pulaski,” Pederman said. “And just when I was starting to not be mad at you.”

  EVAN GURGLED and kicked her feet as Nina Zimmer held her in her lap. Steve sat next to his wife, holding her hand. He looked much better than when we’d found him in the forest, scared and bleeding from a gunshot wound. He seemed nervous, even though we assured him this was not a formal interrogation. Warnick, Erzen, Holly and I waited for Pederman to begin. The conference room door was closed—there was no telling who in our organization might be working for the mayor.

  “How are you doing, Steve?” Pederman said.

  “Better. The nightmares are starting to subside.”

  “Glad to hear it. Now, as I told you, we are looking for information. No one is here to accuse you of anything. We’ll start with Tres Marias. What are they saying out there?”

  Nina nodded encouragingly to her husband. “Total news blackout,” he said. “It’s as if the town disappeared. None of the local newscasters ever mention it anymore. There hasn’t been a story about it in the paper for months.”

  “What about the Internet?” I said.

  “Are you kidding? I searched every day, trying to find something. I’m telling you, it’s like Tres Marias never existed.”

  “Tell us about the group you came here with,” Warnick said. “How did that come about?”

  Steve fidgeted with a pen lying on the table. He seemed reluctant to talk about it. Nina stroked his hand, encouraging him to respond. “I was working in San Francisco. When Nina and I were … having our problems, I left Tres Marias and took a job with a startup. I’d moved out of the house and found a small apartment in the Mission District. It wasn’t much of a life really. Mostly, I buried myself in work. There was so much to do, not enough people to do it. The hours were long but I didn’t care.

  “When the news broke about the sickness, I called Nina. We hadn’t spoken in weeks. I guess she was still really mad—I don’t blame her. We sort of had a fight on the phone. I waited a few days and called her again. I told her I was worried and wanted to come back. This time she agreed. I think she was scared.

  “I saw on the news that they’d quarantined the town. No one knew what was going on. I brought my iPad to work and streamed the news all day while I wrote code. Everyone did. There were so many stories. Evie Champagne was the only credible reporter—the only one who made any sense. Then she disappeared and the reports stopped. Pretty soon everything went dark—newspapers, talk radio … I couldn’t reach Nina. I was getting worried.

  “We used to like to go to dive bars after work. No one ever got drunk—it was just a way to blow off steam. This time it was Lucky 13. Do you know the place? Anyway, we’d come in around ten for a few beers after a long day. The conversation was always the same. We talked about work, our stock options. What we’d do if somebody bought us. It’s really loud in there, but I overheard a group of men sitting near us. I was sure one of them mentioned Tres Marias. That was the first time I’d heard the name in a couple of weeks. So I went over to talk to them. At first they didn’t want to tell me anything. They were probably afraid I was a government agent or something.”

  “Why would they think that?” Pederman said.

  “Early on, there were rumors floating around that this endemic outbreak was the result of some kind of government experiment. Someone mentioned Plum Island. You have to understand—San Francisco has a lot of very smart tech people, but it also has conspiracy theorists and nutjobs who swear they’ve been abducted by aliens. Tres Marias fueled their imagination.”

  “What about you?” Holly said.

  “I was in the middle. I thought the outbreak was some kind of virus, like H1N1. Anyway, I told these guys about Nina and the baby. I said I wanted to be with them but I knew the town was quarantined. They asked me where I worked. Then they wanted to know my address in Tres Marias. Somebody wrote it down. They said they’d be in touch and left.”

  “Did they give you any information about them?” Warnick said.

  “No. I had no idea who I was talking to. Looking back, I was pretty naive. These guys could have been anybody. I tried not to think about it.”

  Steve looked parched. As he adjusted himself in his chair, wincing from the pain of his wound, I got up and filled a cup with water from a plastic jug. He took it gratefully and gulped it down. “Thanks. A few days went by and I hadn’t heard anything. I went back to that bar every night, but those guys never showed again. One day I got a call at my desk. The voice said to meet me at this pub not far from my office on Market Street.

  “When I got there, I recognized one of the guys from that night. We left the pub and walked down the street to the Yerba Buena Gardens, where we met the rest of the men who’d been at Lucky 13, plus a few more. I learned that, like me, some of the men who lived in Tres Marias had been out of town when the quarantine had gone into effect. Others had relatives living there. They wanted to know what had happened. And they planned to get in one way or another.”

  “Meaning guns,” Erzen said.

  Steve reddened. We waded through a long, uncomfortable silence. He gave Evan his finger to play with. “There was this guy, Kevin—I never got his last name. He was the one you found me with in the forest. He was basically the leader. When I found out that they planned to get in using weapons, I walked. I promised I wouldn’t say anything and told them I didn’t want to be part of any violence. I mean, most of these guys weren’t macho or ex-military or anything. They weren’t crazed vigilantes. They were gamers. People who’d only ever experienced warfare courtesy of Call of Duty or paintball. But they were totally serious about this.”

  “And they were packing some pretty serious firepower,” Pederman said. “Where did they get those weapons?”

  “You can find anything on the Internet. After a few days, Kevin showed up at my place of work. He wanted to convince me to join. He said that Black Dragon was a paramilitary group that had no right to hold the town hostage. He made it sound like we would be liberating Tres Marias. I didn’t really believe the things he said. Then he showed me a video on his iPad—said he’d found it on YouTube. Ever heard of Robbin-Sear?”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, glancing at the others.

  “Somebody’d uploaded a marketing video they’d produced years ago. It showed soldiers going into combat, taking direct hits and continuing on to kill the enemy, then going home to be with their families. Stuff like that. The video was called ‘The Future of Combat.’ I don’t know why, but it really scared me. Kevin insisted that this had something to do with the outbreak. He said he’d heard that Robbin-Sear had built a secret facility in Tres Marias. I wanted more than anything to find Nina and Evan, and I didn’t really have any other options. The next weekend I drove down to Tres Marias and saw for myself the barricades, the soldiers and the helicopters. It terrified me, the thought of going up against soldiers with guns. But by this time I was desperate. All I could think about was Nina and the baby. I didn’t know whether they were alive or dead, but I needed to find out. When I got back to San Francisco, I told Kevin I was in.”

  “When we found you, you didn’t even have a weapon,” Warnick said.

  “Kevin sold me one of his handguns. He took me to a shooting range a couple of times in South San Francisco. I got pretty good but those were targets.”

  “How did you know when to attack?” Pederman said.

  “Kevin friended a Black Dragon employee on Facebook. He was based in San Francisco. He sent the guy a priva
te message saying he was worried about sick people escaping from Tres Marias. How well protected were the borders? They decided to meet. Kevin was one of those guys who could charm anybody. The guy spilled everything. He talked about how you rotated people in and out, and when. He said during a shift change, there was a short window where the coverage was light, but that otherwise everything was locked up pretty tight.”

  “That guy is so fired,” Pederman said, looking at Warnick.

  “When we got to Tres Marias that afternoon,” Steve said, “I tried using my gun, but I couldn’t bring myself to shoot anyone. I gave it to another guy. Your soldiers were firing at us. I was almost killed. Then the infected people showed up—I’d never seen one before—and you got distracted. I was with Kevin, and he told me to follow him. Somehow we got through and ran into the forest. Wouldn’t you know it, I got shot. Kevin said we could make it to the hospital once we got through the forest, but I didn’t think I could. We stopped in a clearing. I was pretty bad off. A group of Black Dragon soldiers found us. I didn’t care—I thought we were saved. But they just stood there. It was … I don’t know … weird.”

  “What was weird?” I said.

  “It was like they were in a trance. One of them grunted at the others and ... they surrounded us.”

  “Did they raise their weapons?” Warnick said.

  “No. But they kept moving in closer. Their eyes, they—never mind.”

  “What about their eyes?” Erzen said.

  “It was like … they were glowing. It sounds insane, but I know what I saw. Kevin shot at them repeatedly until he was out of bullets. I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. I was bleeding out so I sat against a tree.” Gripping the edge of the table, Steve choked up. “They went for Kevin, but not me. They grabbed him—he was screaming. They tore his pants off. I thought they were going to, you know, rape him or something. The one in charge grunted again, and two of the soldiers handed him the straps from their weapons. As the others held Kevin down, the one in charge tied his legs off at the thigh. They removed the bayonets from their rifles and …”

  Tears rolled down Steve’s cheeks. The fear he must have felt then was on his face now. His mouth was open but no sound came out. Nina rubbed his shoulder and whispered something to him. He nodded and swallowed. “The thing is, while they were … attacking him, Kevin stopped screaming. He just … He laid there. Probably shock, I don’t know. I can still hear them. Cutting the flesh … eating him.”

  The only sound in the room came from Steve. He was sobbing. His daughter looked at him curiously, then she began to cry too. Nina got up and walked around the room with the baby as Steve pulled himself together.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Not a problem,” Pederman said. Then to us, “I wish I could see that video.”

  Wiping his eyes, Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. “Before we left San Francisco, I downloaded it. I don’t know why. I’ve kept it with me.”

  Pederman left the room and returned with his laptop. He connected it to the ceiling-mounted projector and plugged in the drive. The video was crude, with amped-up canned rock music and cheesy computer animation. It showed a soldier in a Humvee under attack. He got out of his vehicle and, taking a direct hit from enemy fire, continued towards them, firing his M-16. Soon, he’d killed all of the enemy fighters singlehandedly. The scene changed, showing the soldier at home with his wife and baby daughter. The narration hinted that, despite being in combat, he remained happy and healthy. And normal. The final shot was of the soldier asleep in bed. And the tag line, “No more nightmares.”

  “This is what Robbin-Sear is creating,” I said. “The next-gen soldier.”

  Pederman got up from the table. “I think we’re done here.”

  After Steve and Nina returned to their trailer, I sat in the conference room alone. The others had gone out for food. I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind—Kevin lying on the ground as those hellish things carved up his legs like skewers of meat at a Brazilian steakhouse and chewed the bloody flesh as he lay dying. If we hadn’t found them, Steve would be dead, too.

  I knew now the virus was working the way Bob Creasy and the others had hoped it would. The infection no longer killed the host. Instead it transformed a person into something new—still living but dangerous. Something invincible and cunning but with that same hunger for human flesh. And though they were incapable of speech, I knew that would come eventually. What if the infected continued to evolve into something that looked and acted completely normal? Cannibals in suits? How would we recognize and eliminate them? Was killing one of these unlike killing draggers? Draggers were already dead. These creatures were alive—but were they human? Would it be considered murder? Too many questions. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. In a few minutes, the door opened and the others returned, along with Springer. Everyone but me dug into their food.

  “I brought you a sandwich,” Holly said, handing me a PB&J and a juice box.

  The smell of the peanut butter made me want to hurl. “Thanks,” I said. Then to Pederman, “We need to find that secret lab.”

  Pederman took a swig of Coke. “I did some checking. Communications is handled by someone outside Black Dragon. I suspect those agents we encountered have something to do with it. Everything has been shut down remotely.”

  “Well, I don’t think the mayor is going to tell us anything,” Holly said. “What about asking Walt Freeman?”

  “Forget it,” I said.

  “But how can they shut it down? It’s the Internet.”

  “Why don’t we try getting through?” Springer said.

  I could tell Pederman was annoyed as he turned to Springer. “I’m telling you, this is a waste of time.” He took his laptop, logged in and opened a browser window. “See that little symbol at the bottom? Wireless is on. And I’m connected to the school’s Wi-Fi. Here we go. W-W-W-dot-Google-dot-com.” We waited. A message appeared on the screen. THIS WEBPAGE IS NOT AVAILABLE. “It’s like that for any site you visit.”

  “Let me try,” Springer said, reaching for the laptop.

  “Springer, you can do that later. Let’s stick to business.”

  “So if we don’t have Internet or phone access,” I said, “how are we supposed to find out where the other lab is?”

  “Someone has to get outside of Tres Marias,” Warnick said. “What about a special pass?”

  “We are in lockdown,” Pederman said. “No one is allowed in or out—no exceptions. There will be agents watching the borders, I’m sure of it.”

  “What about those people we captured at the checkpoint,” Erzen said. “Weren’t they supposed to be sent home?”

  “They’ve already been released,” Pederman said. “There’s no one left.”

  “Then we’re screwed,” I said.

  JIM STARED AT ME in a way that made me uncomfortable. He was dressed in white and reminded me of a bandleader—I think his name was Cab Calloway. And if you get that reference, I’ll give you a dollar. Even the shoes were white. It took me a minute to notice the dark blood leaking from his starched collar.

  “Why haven’t you stopped this?” he said.

  He was petting Perro, who sat calmly next to him, also wearing a white tuxedo. I wondered where the animal’s top hat was. Perro looked good—the way I remembered him, before the badness. But it was Jim’s eyes. They seemed to glow purple. Like Ariel’s. Like those cannibal creeps who’d dined on Steve Zimmer’s friend. That’s what made me uncomfortable. Those eyes saw right through me. They were probably sizing up my organs to see which would be worth extracting first.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  But I knew. Like always, Jim wanted me to “fix it.” Of the two of us, he was the worse screw-up. I wouldn’t say I was smart, but he was lazy-crazy. Always getting himself into shit and wanting me to fix it. What had happened to my friend hadn’t been his fault, though. Not this time. He’d died
because of the evil that the mayor and Robbin-Sear and the others had brought down on Tres Marias. An evil that had a purpose. So many had died. So many were being burned in efficient incinerators that would leave no evidence of the crimes committed. Guthrie had advised us to follow the money. Was this really all about money?

  “‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,’” Jim said and belched, like in the old days.

  I watched in fascination as he picked a kidney worm out from between his teeth. Incredibly, it was the size of a pickle. He held it up to the light to get a better look. As it squirmed I could hear a faint squeaking. The whole business made me sick. Seeing my look of disgust he let it slip from his fingers. When it hit the ground, still writhing, he stomped on it once with his heel, the blood squirting onto his pristine pant leg.

  “Whoops.”

  “I don’t like these dreams,” I said. “Seriously, Jim, you’re not helping.”

  “That’s because you never listen, Dave. It’s your biggest problem—not listening.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  I realized I was sitting against a smooth, white wall, dressed in my Black Dragon uniform. I was unarmed. My boots were polished. Jim approached me and looked me over. He kicked the soles of my boots as Perro sniffed my hand.

  “Nice outfit,” he said. “You look like a mall cop. Get up.”

  “Why? You’re just going to start some new bullshit.”

  His eyes glowed fiercely and his voice became a hurricane that pressed me against the wall. “Get up!”

  The floor became liquid. I was in the middle of a twister, swirling madly—unable to touch the ground. I couldn’t make out my surroundings. As I tried to focus I caught glimpses of Holly, Griffin, Warnick and Springer. I felt like Dorothy. Pederman flew by, then the mayor, now O’Brien and Hannity. Finally, Walt. I wanted to puke. Right when I thought I would, everything stopped and I was standing inside the fence at Robbin-Sear. Outside, a thousand old-school draggers moaned and tore at the fence. They wanted to devour me. A part of me wished they would.