If it weren’t for the gun in his hand that prevented him from putting both his arms around her, Mason could’ve forgotten everything. For just a moment, he felt so good to have Cate back. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into her hair.
It was just a moment. Cate pulled away and looked him in the eyes. He almost thought she was going to kiss him.
Instead, she said, “Shoot her in the head.”
“What?” Mason managed to ask.
Cate gestured at the dead woman on the ground. “Take her head off. Please”
“Cate. She’s dead.” He was trying to think of how else to explain the situation to her. What else could he say? The woman was dead.
Cate sighed, like she thought Mason was the one who was slow to grasp the situation. Then she gestured at the creature they’d just shot to death. “So was he.”
Mason looked at what remained of the creature’s body again. How could he have missed something so obvious? The creature was wearing a guard uniform. It didn’t make any sense. The guards they’d seen here earlier were dead. Definitely dead. It wasn’t possible. Of course, this had been a night of impossibilities.
As soon as he accepted that, he remembered the other dead guard. As Mason turned in the direction they’d just come from, he pushed Cate behind him, as if to shield her with his body from what he was afraid they’d find.
The body of the guard was gone.
Althea and Frank spread out and the three of them started circling the room. He couldn’t keep hold of Cate and do his job, so he said, “Just stay right behind me, okay?”
She put her hand on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his ear as she said, “Okay.”
Frank said, “Room’s clear.”
Althea had backed up to the far wall, closest to the room they’d just come from. She said, “He must’ve gone down this hall, but I don’t see him. How is that possible? How could he move so fast, without any of us noticing?”
“Let’s get out of here. It’s too open.” Frank said.
Mason wanted to get Cate somewhere safe. First they needed to take care of the woman’s body.
“Don’t look, Cate.” Cate buried her face in his back and Mason shot the dead woman until there was nothing left of her head. He turned around and faced Cate. “It’s over.”
She opened her eyes and he thought she might cry. Instead, she laughed, mirthlessly. “I don’t think we’re that lucky.”
Her laugh sent a chill down his spine. Mason called to Frank, who was closest to the body dead guard who’d shot himself. “Can you grab his gun?”
Frank took the gun, checked it and tossed it to Mason. Mason held it out to Cate. “Still remember how to shoot one of these?”
She smirked. “Yeah, just like riding a bike.”
He held onto it, not sure if it was the best idea, giving her the gun. Maybe he should just make sure she stayed close.
“Mason,” now she looked exasperated. “I had to go through basic training like everyone else. Give me the gun.”
She held out her hand and looked impatient. For a second, he felt like they were having an old argument over who got to drive. When she demanded his keys, he could never refuse. He gave her the gun. Cate disengaged the safety and held it like she did, indeed, remember how to handle the weapon.
“Guys.” Frank called out. “We gotta move, now.”
Mason looked over and saw three orange day glo wearing things stumbling towards them from across the lobby. He’d seen one of those things run and knew it might be seconds before they were upon them. He had no idea why they weren’t already charging.
“Fall back to the room.” Mason ordered.
He and Frank kept their guns on the advancing creatures while walking backwards towards the shelter of the barricaded room. Althea led the way to the door, with Cate in between.
Althea got to the door first and started knocking on it. As Mason and Frank backed up next to the two women, and the door remained closed, Althea started banging on it and yelling. “Let us in.”
The prisoner creatures were still making their way across the lobby, very slowly. They were walking like drunk people and not making much progress. He didn’t understand it, but Mason was glad they hadn’t charged. He was afraid they wouldn’t be able to take down all three of them.
“I’m sorry,” came the answer from inside. “I can’t do that.”
Mason realized what the look Stan had given him had meant. They were locked out and he wasn’t going to let them back in.
Chapter 25
Mason asked her to hold on to him. That’s not exactly what he said, but Cate got to touch him more, so that’s how she interpreted it. She needed something good at that moment, even if it was just pressing into her ex-almost-fiance’s back as he shot her dead boss in the head to keep her from rising up and eating them all. It was the small things in life, she thought, wryly.
As Mason, the female security guard, and the other male agent - she couldn’t remember his name from this morning, had that just been this morning? - swept the room, a thought popped, unbidden, into Cate’s head. With Marisol dead, her secret was safe again, for now. She felt guilty for the moment of relief it gave her. Marisol deserved better. She deserved to be mourned.
Cate wouldn’t be able to keep her blood type secret for long, anyway. Marisol had been right about an impending investigation. If they survived the night, and she was able to leave the building before the investigation began, Cate would have to go on the run.
Cate hadn’t noticed when the one other dead guard disappeared from the room. She was still trying to get used to the idea of the dead being able to move. She was still trying to process being prey.
After Mason handed her the gun, the other agent said, “We gotta move, now.”
Cate saw three prisoners in orange jump suits stumbling towards them in a semi-catatonic state. The prisoners had gotten out! That would explain why the dead guards had the same smell of rot. They must have been attacked by the prisoners, infected when they were bitten.
Cate knew these things, these monsters – she’d call them that for now - could hurt her, kill her. She’d seen how fast the one prisoner had moved to attack Andrew. He’d seemed catatonic then, as well, before he charged, and fed. After her family was killed, and she’d been turned, bitten, she’d developed an irrational fear of becoming someone’s dinner. Her fear had been irrational, before, because what would eat a vee? Now, she had good reason to wonder if these things would find her tasty, which was enough to make her knees go weak.
More overwhelming though, even than her fear, was her need for answers. Why were these three not attacking already? What was causing their disorientation? Their smell? How were the original vaccinated prisoners different than the bitten guards? And how were any of them alive?
It couldn’t have been more than an hour or so since she took Andrew to the ambulance. The prisoners had taken three hours to exhibit signs of change. Did the infection spread more rapidly through saliva and blood, or were the dead guards just anomalies? She needed samples to study, and time.
Cate heard Stan say through the door, “I can’t do that.”
She snapped back into the moment. Stan, who could’ve prevented this all from happening, could give her answers. The female guard banged on the door again. Was he not opening the door? Maybe he didn’t understand. Cate moved forward.
“Stan, please. Let us in.” Cate urged.
“Cate? Is that you?” That was good. He heard her. He knew Cate, had worked with her for years. He’d have to let them in.
“Yeah, Stan, it’s a long story.” Why was he taking so long? “Let us in and I can tell you about it.”
The prisoners were still advancing slowly. They were near the elevators now, all three of them, bumping into each other as they moved. Disoriented and slow, yes, but they were coming closer just the same.
“I’m sorry Cate. I can’t. Not with those things out there.” Stan could. He just wouldn’t.
Stan cared only about Stan. That hadn’t changed as long as she’d known him. It wasn’t going to change now. She was out of ideas and time so she looked at Mason for anything.
He said, “There’s another one in there. Young, good looking guy.”
James! He would help. Cate yelled, “James. James. Let us in.”
James didn’t answer. Stan called back. “You guys best get going. I’m not opening this door.”
And then the smell hit her, hard and close, and she knew it was too late.
Chapter 26
Keeping Carl alive - and getting his hard drive back - was what Daniel really needed to figure out, and he guessed he had about ten minutes to do it. As he and Jerome followed Lisa – she said she thought she knew where the server building was – Daniel tried to come up with some sort of useful plan of attack. He could try a straightforward approach. Hide out in the room, wait for them to arrive. When Carl got to work and Stephen no longer had the gun pressed to his head - assuming he no longer had the gun pressed to his head - he and Jerome could overpower Stephen. It was the gun to the head part that worried him.
Carl had explained to Daniel why they couldn’t just wipe the files in the server building remotely. The building was on the grounds of the research complex, a few yards apart from the main building. It had its own power supply, which could not be controlled from SCC. Data was automatically and regularly backed up to the servers in that building, but couldn’t be accessed except in the actual room. If their plan to steal, and then delete, all the files was going to work, they’d have to wipe the data that was stored in the server room. Daniel wished Stephen hadn’t overheard them talking about that. It could’ve saved him a lot of trouble. Of course, that was also what was keeping Carl alive.
Jerome interrupted Daniel’s thoughts, stopping him on the stairway landing between floors. “Suppose I cut out when we get up there?”
So much for straightforward. Daniel had been trying to get rid of Jerome for what seemed like half the night. Now that he actually wanted Jerome to stick around and help, the guy was gonna leave.
Maybe he could be convinced. “Stephen scares you, does he?”
Jerome laughed. “Yeah, I ain’t gonna take the bait. I don’t care if you think I’m a coward.”
Daniel had to stop assuming Jerome was an idiot. A different approach then. “Why’d you come with me? I mean, why didn’t you leave sooner?”
Jerome shrugged. “I don’t know. Thought you might have a big idea or something.”
Ah. This was familiar ground. Ideas were something Daniel was good at. “I do, and that hasn’t changed.”
Jerome didn’t seem that impressed. Lisa got to the landing above them and sat down to wait.
Daniel insisted, “Listen, Stephen is going to try to take that list and sell it to the highest bidder. Who do you think has the biggest need for a list of every known vee and their whereabouts? Who do you think wants that list more than me?”
Jerome rolled his eyes at the obviousness of the answer. “The humans. Government, probably.”
“Exactly. And when they get it, they will go right back to rounding us up, experimenting on us and exterminating us.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t plan on going back to my old hangouts anyway.”
Jerome didn’t seem to understand exactly how important this was. Daniel pushed on. “I can stop them. Not only will they not know where to find us, but I’ll be able to contact every vee out there. I can lead us to a new world order.”
If they could leave here with the only copy of the biggest compiled list of vee whereabouts in existence, it would take the humans years to recover. It would only take Daniel weeks to set in motion the next part of his plan.
“Yeah, you know,” Jerome said, sounding a little embarrassed, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do and all, but I think I just want to live to eat another day, you know?”
Daniel smiled at Jerome as if it wasn’t the least bit of a problem. “Completely understand.” And then he went back to thinking Jerome was an idiot.
There would be no convincing him. Daniel had no more time to waste. He walked away from Jerome, up the stairs and offered Lisa his hand. “Allow me.”
Lisa looked startled, but took his hand. Since she was his only ally at this point, albeit only because he was holding her husband hostage, still, since she was with him through thick or thin tonight, he might as well be nice.
Jerome caught up. “This is G? Yeah, here’s where I get off.”
Before stepping past Lisa and Daniel and opening the door out into the hall, Jerome asked Lisa, “Can you point me towards the nearest exit?”
“Oh, okay.” Lisa opened the door and stepped through, with Jerome beside her. Daniel followed, but as soon as he stepped into the corridor, he knew by the smell that something was wrong.
Lisa said, “It’s real easy. You just go down here until you come to another hallway, and then turn left. That’s if you want to get to the main entrance,” Lisa paused for a moment, like she was remembering what was at the main entrance and thinking of an alternative. “Oh, but I guess that would be fine.”
They were standing in a long hallway. This building had a lot of long hallways. Daniel looked both ways, but didn’t see anything. Still, the smell was disturbing.
“You smell that?” Jerome crinkled his nose.
Daniel turned to Lisa, “Time to go.”
He put his hand on the stairwell doorknob..
She looked confused. “We’re on the ground floor. We just have to walk to that end of the building, and then outside.”
The smell was getting stronger, fast. Jerome started turning this way and that, trying to track down the source.
Out of time. It was here.
Daniel put his arm around Lisa’s shoulders, pushed open the door to the stairwell, and pulled her in. As soon as he did, he felt a rush of air and heard a yell as something knocked Jerome to the ground.
Daniel hissed, “Run.” Lisa still stood there, as if not understanding what was going on. “Run.” He pushed her towards the stairs and she started running up.
Daniel planned to follow her in a second. This was Jerome’s fight, he wasn’t going to help. He just wanted to see how it played out. Daniel peered through the window on the now closed door. There was a man dressed in prison orange wrestling with Jerome. Jerome was yelling and trying to push him off, but the man was winning!
How was that possible? Jerome was bigger than the prisoner. Daniel knew the prisoner was no longer human, he could smell the change on him. It seemed to him that the prisoner was stronger than human, like a vee. Only, not exactly.
Jerome was fighting for his life – trying to stay alive. This thing didn’t seem to care. It was focused on feeding, not on surviving. It didn’t seem to mind the blows that Jerome landed on him. And since Jerome wasn’t using his teeth, he wasn’t slowing the thing down at all.
As Daniel turned to follow Lisa up the stairs, he saw the man bite into Jerome’s arm. No, not bite. That wasn’t the right word for it. Vees bit. This thing had ripped.
Chapter 27
There were only a few shots fired before the dead, faceless, rotting, guard charged down the hallway and into Althea. She fell down on top of Cate, and their three bodies knocked Mason and Frank back a foot towards the lobby.
In the two seconds it took Mason to recover, the thing had started chewing on a chunk of Althea’s cheek. She was screaming and trying to free herself. She and Cate were pinned beneath it.
Mason saw Frank take aim with his gun at the creature’s head. “No!” The bullets could kill Althea, or Cate. “We need to knock it off her.”
Mason started to move to do just that when Cate yelled out. “Behind you!”
He turned to see two of the formerly slow and disoriented prisoners charging towards them. Frank turned as well and they both started firing. The things were moving too quickly for targeting the head. Mason shot the easier target of their bodies, trying to slow them
down. They were coming fast.
And then his clip was empty. He didn’t have a spare. He hadn’t thought he’d need one for a routine transfer job. Frank wasn’t going to be able to hold them off for long and they were penned in from all sides. If he could get that thing off of Cate and Althea, get Althea’s gun, and get Cate free, they all might have a chance.
As Mason turned back towards Cate and Althea, the head of the creature on top of the two women exploded. Mason threw his arm over his face to protect it from the bullet shrapnel, and the blood. It was over as fast as he’d reacted. When he looked down again, Cate, who had somehow gotten her gun free, was holding it in her one hand and trying to use her free arm to push the dead creature off of her and Althea.
Mason pulled the body off. Althea’s face was a bloody mess, but she was still alive. He could hear her crying. Her eyes were clamped shut and the tears weren’t making any streams in the thick cover of blood.
Cate stood up and stepped next to Frank, firing at the charging prisoners. Mason leaned into Althea’s still intact ear. “I’m gonna take your gun and get you out of here.”
She nodded and released her gun into his hand. While keeping hold of the gun, Mason got his arms under Althea’s, propped her up, rotated her and started backing down the hall.
“Let’s move.” He called, so Frank and Cate would know to retreat.
It was clear Stan wouldn’t be opening the door now. Mason started dragging Althea to the next door down.
“Goddam it!” Frank holstered his gun, turned to Mason and said, “I’m out.”
They were barely holding back the attack as it was. Not a good time to ease up. Mason stepped forward to fill Frank’s position. “Take over.” He nodded towards Althea.
As Frank turned to move, he yelled, “Look out. Hallway.”
Mason swung his gun around, facing the other direction. The third prisoner was coming towards them down the hall. Mason couldn’t help thinking it had circled around on purpose, to surround them. Could it have thought that through?
The V to Z Trilogy (Book 1): Caged Page 13
