She let the kiss go on too long. Despite all the vees in the world and the zombies at their door and the stink in the air. Cate let Mason kiss her. Cate kissed Mason. And she held on to that moment like it was the last happy moment she’d ever have, because it probably would be.
Mason broke the kiss and said, “I have never stopped loving you. I tried. And I still expect answers, but…” It was exactly what Cate wanted to hear, but she had to tell him now, or she never would. Before she could respond, Mason continued. “I needed you to know that, before I leave. Just in case.”
Her heart stopped. “Leave? To go where?”
“We have to warn the outside about the zombies. Who knows how many there are at this point, since they can make new ones. I need to get to my car to make a call. Get this place shut down.”
Cate said, “It already is.”
She told him about trying to leave the building, about the slaughter, about everything she’d seen before coming back here. Maybe that was enough, to keep him with her. Maybe he would stay now.
He looked like he wanted to hug her again. He looked like he wanted to punch someone. Then he just looked tired. “The escaped vees must have gone to SCC, to lock the doors remotely.”
Mason looked beyond her. He looked at Frank. “You ready to get back to killing vees?”
Frank groaned and toppled over.
Chapter 31
“I’m not going anywhere.” Frank sounded exhausted, or like he had the flu. Mason hadn’t thought he was as tired as all that.
Mason said, “If you need to stay...” Frank wouldn’t back out of a mission unless he really had to.
Cate gasped. “Oh.” And covered her mouth.
Frank smiled at her, like they were sharing a joke. But Mason could tell it wasn’t funny.
He looked at Cate, who looked like she’d just seen a puppy hit by a car, and back to Frank, who looked like he’d just been hit by a car, and then Mason understood.
“No. No, Frank. It was just a little scratch.”
Frank chuckled. Or maybe it was a sob. Mason couldn’t tell, as the smile never left Frank’s face.
“That’s what I thought too. I really didn’t think about it at all, until the two of you started talking about bites and infections and then I figured maybe I’m not so much tired as… something else.”
Cate knelt down next to Frank, took his arm, and helped him sit up again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d been bitten.”
There had to be something they could do. Mason asked, “Can you give him an injection, or something? Maybe some other vaccine?”
Cate looked up at Mason. There was no hope in her eyes. “I don’t know. If we could get to the blood supply, across the hall. Maybe an infusion. We could try to flush it out.”
She sounded like she was reaching. He didn’t care. “Right, just across the hall. What else would you need? Just blood? Are there needles and tubes and all that over there?”
Frank started coughing. “Uh, I don’t feel so good.”
He didn’t look so good either. When had he gotten so pale? Even in the red glow of the room, he looked like death. There was no time to waste.
Mason said, “Hold on. I’ll be right back.” He started to move the file cabinet.
“Stop!” Frank hissed.
Frank held his hand out to him. What was he doing? Wasting time. Mason went and took Frank’s hand. He was shocked by how cold it was.
“You can’t leave me alone with her.” Frank insisted. “I don’t want you coming back in here finding out that I had your girlfriend for dinner. You’d never forgive me.”
Mason said, “Shut up. Nothing like that is gonna happen.”
“Sit down.” Frank ordered. Mason sat down next to Frank, opposite Cate. Frank looked suddenly pale and clammy. This was happening too fast.
“Listen,” Frank was no longer smiling. “I don’t want you wasting time or risking your life for something that won’t help anyway.”
“We don’t know that.” Mason insisted. He looked over at Cate. She shook her head, as if she thought it was already too late.
Frank looked like it took every drop of energy he had to keep talking. “I just shit myself. Okay? And that was bad enough. I don’t know how long we have. I need you to end this before I turn into one of those things.”
“Frank, I can’t do that.” He couldn’t. How could he kill his friend?
“Yes, you can and you will. I’m done arguing. Tell Susan...” Frank broke off. Mason wanted to look away. He couldn’t bear to watch his friend cry.
“Shit. Just make something up for me.” Frank nodded, like he was ready. Mason wasn’t ready though. How was he supposed to do this?
He looked at Cate. She was crying, but she nodded at him in understanding. She always could read his mind. He knew what to do now.
Mason mustered a smile for Frank. He didn’t let go of his hand. He looked him right in the eyes and said, “Just one more time, tell me about that honeymoon of yours.”
Frank laughed. Mason was glad that he got him to laugh, because then Frank didn’t notice Cate pulling the trigger.
Chapter 32
Daniel knew the idea was stupid and probably wouldn’t work. Today had been a long day, and this evening had gone not quite according to his perfect plans. He was about plum out of anything original and brilliant.
“Turn it to the left a little.” He shifted it a smidge and Lisa said, “Perfect.”
Daniel walked out from the aisle of servers and took Lisa’s place by the door. “Would you stand over there for me?” he asked.
She walked back over to where he’d been. Perfect. From where he stood in the doorway, if he stared at where she actually was, he couldn’t see her at all. She was blocked by a row of servers. If he looked straight ahead, like someone who’d just opened the door, Lisa’s reflection in the mirror appeared just like she was straight in front of him.
The illusion wouldn’t last for more than a second. Daniel had to assume that would be enough time. At least, that’s what he hoped.
He let the door close behind him and walked back over to Lisa. He handed her his gun.
She took the gun as if it were a very expensive and breakable teacup. “You remember how to use one of these?”
Lisa glared at him for a second, but she started holding the gun like a gun, so he didn’t mind. Daniel was about to walk away when she stopped him.
“Miguel?” Lisa asked. “Is he really okay?”
“You’re husband is fine. You’ll see him again soon.” Daniel smiled in what he hoped was a believable and reassuring manner. Lisa was looking nerve-wrackingly uncertain. Daniel added, “I think it’s best we get in position. No telling when they’ll arrive.”
She looked nervous. “I really don’t feel comfortable with this. What if I hit your friend?”
Now that she’d stopped sniveling all the time, and had indeed proven useful, Daniel was beginning to like Lisa. When this night was over, he might even help her and her husband escape the area, if that didn’t prove to be too inconvenient.
Daniel reassured her. “Carl will be fine. Aim low and if you nick him in the process, serves him right.”
Daniel led Lisa over to the end of the aisle where she was going to hide until the action started. He gave her a “you can do it” hard stare. She smiled. As he walked back to his position, facing the mirror, he hoped she could. He hoped she didn’t kill Carl. That would really screw up his plans. He was willing to take that risk. Had no choice, really. Besides, Carl had cushion. It would take a lot of bullets to get through all that flesh.
He rubbed his forehead to try to get the tension out. This part of the plan was supposed to have been the easy part. Now, Daniel had to sit here and wait and hope that his friend didn’t end up dead, that Stephen did, and that he was able to leave with a big fat backpack filled with the only copy of the NVIA data base. Was that too much to hope for?
Chapter 33
The last thin
g Cate wanted was to leave this room, putting the two of them in danger, but Mason was going to remember he wanted to leave sooner or later, and maybe getting him on mission again would be a distraction from his loss.
“Let’s get going.” Cate stood up, and held her hand out to help Mason. “We have some people to warn.”
Mason snapped his head up and looked at her so quickly, she thought she’d scared him.
“Cate! Your friend, James.” Mason looked horror stricken. “He was bitten!”
Cate was getting used to the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. That meant… “Stan.”
Mason stood, put both hands on her shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “You ready for this?”
She smiled at him, as much to assure him as to lie to herself. Ready to face an army of zombies and possible death by digestion? “Sure.”
She took one final look at the zombie locked in the prisoner room. He was still trying to eat through the glass as mindlessly as ever. She could sympathize. She was pretty hungry herself.
Mason checked her gun and his own for bullets. “We don’t have a lot to go around, so only shoot when you have a shot. Got it?”
“Got it.”
She trained her gun on the door while he moved the file cabinets. The door didn’t instantly spring open with zombies rushing in, which meant they were going to live a lot longer than she thought they would.
Cate made it to her office door unmolested. She didn’t smell any zombies, beyond the odor that hung in the air. Mason nodded at her, signaling the all clear. Apparently special agents in the field didn’t use words.
She knocked on the door. “Stan. It’s me, Cate.”
“Cate?” She was shocked he was still alive. He sounded relieved to hear her voice. “Cate, I still can’t let you in.”
Cate pressed on, through her irritation. “Stan, listen to me. You have to get out of there. You need to get away from James.”
Stan sighed loudly. “James is dead, Cate, and I’m not opening this door.”
Cate took a deep breath. She could smell it now. It was stronger. There was a zombie somewhere close. Out of time, again.
“Stan, I know about the pigs. Marisol told me before she died.”
“I don’t know what she said, but it wasn’t true.” Stan lied.
How did he get to be her boss when he was such an idiot? The smell. She looked past Mason but didn’t see anything.
“I don’t care, Stan. Listen to me, this vaccine does something, makes it so infected people don’t die. They come back to life, Stan. Like the pigs. James isn’t dead, he’s…” What to call it? “He’s mid change. You need to get out of there before he gets up.”
She heard movement behind the door. Good. Not too much of an idiot. He was finally listening.
“Cate, I can’t move the file myself.” Stan said, panic sneaking into his voice.
Cate could only imagine how the cabinet was propped, having not seen it, but she had a pretty good idea how physics worked. “Climb under it and kick it off the door.”
Cate wished he’d hurry. The smell was so strong. It had to be right there, but she couldn’t see anything. It was as if the zombie was right on top of her. She couldn’t see it, but it had to be…
“Stan!” Cate yelled, desperately. “Get out of there. Now.”
She heard him rustling around. “I’m trying.” He whined.
She tried the doorknob. Locked. “Unlock the door, Stan.” Cate started pushing on the door, even though she knew it couldn’t help. “Unlock the door. I can help.”
Too late. Stan began to shriek.
Cate backed as far away from the door as she could, all the way to the wall. She couldn’t take her eyes off the doorknob, as she covered her ears. She couldn’t drown out Stan’s screaming. The noise dug into her and became the only thing - Stan’s shrieks of pain behind the door that wouldn’t open. Cate couldn’t blink. She couldn’t move. The screaming went on forever and she was trapped by it.
Mason stepped in front of her, forcing her to look at him. “Cate.” He said calmly. And she heard him. “Cate. We have to go.”
And then Cate was able to move again, because the screaming had stopped.
Chapter 34
Mason led Cate quickly away from her office. Stan had stopped screaming, which meant that James, or what had been James, would start looking for his next meal soon.
As they stepped into the stairwell, Cate grabbed his arm. She was staring off in the distance, blankly. “Andrew had a cell phone.”
“What?” Mason asked.
She looked at him and then her eyes seemed to come back into focus. “Andrew. His cell phone. There are cell phones in the lobby. We can call out.”
Of course. They didn’t need to go all the way to SCC for a phone. If they could get to the lobby, get hold of a confiscated cell phone, he could warn his director about what was going on. Keep the building locked down. Keep those things from getting out.
Slowly, he and Cate made their way to the ground floor. Somehow, they got to the lobby without seeing a vee or a zombie.
What he saw there more than made up for having arrived unscathed. The entire room was littered with dead bodies. He’d never seen so many in one place before. There must be eighty people, dead. Cate was unfazed. Of course, she’d been here when the slaughter had started. Mason, on the other hand, had to remind himself to breathe again.
Like so many things he’d seen that night, there was no time to process. The storage lockers were near the guard desk by the building’s main doors. He didn’t want Cate to have to walk through the minefield of blood and death. Not again.
“Stay here.” He said. “I’ll be right back.”
As Mason made his way across the lobby, trying to find areas of floor to step on so as not to walk on the corpses, he realized two of the front doors were propped open by bodies. He headed there instead of to the lockers.
The six bodies jammed in between the two sets of doors were dead guards, in full body armor. These weren’t the guards from the front desk. They looked like they were from an exterior guard patrol. Mason guessed they’d come to investigate the alarm, seen the bodies in the lobby, and entered the building. The worst part was that these guards must’ve been killed by zombies, judging from their injuries. There was no telling if some dead guards had already risen and walked out into the night. There was no way to know if, or when, these corpses would reanimate. There was no telling where the zombies who killed them had gone.
Despite the implications, the doors being opened had one positive effect.
Mason called out, “We can get out, Cate. I have a phone in the car.”
Cate looked frozen in place. Horror stricken. Mason wasn’t sure if she was in shock from the carnage, or if it was something else.“Cate?” Mason asked.
One of the dead guards sat up about two feet away from him. Cate must’ve seen the zombie moving before even he had. Fortunately, the zombie had not focused on anything yet. Mason was sure it would sense food nearby soon enough.
No point in trying to make it outside now, not with Cate on the wrong side of a field of bodies, and both of them stuck on the far side of the soon to be walking dead. Chances were that the others would wake up shortly and they didn’t have enough bullets to kill them all. No time to try to break into a locker, either.
“Cate.” He whispered. “Get ready.”
He started walking slowly towards her, careful not to trip on legs or arms. Carefully, he watched his step, and watched Cate. He saw her eyes widen in terror.
“Mason.” Cate shouted. “Mason. Run.”
Chapter 35
As the door opened, Daniel prepared to give the performance of his life.
Stephen pushed Carl into the room in front of him, gun stuck in his back. After taking a couple steps, Stephen saw Daniel and just shook his head, as if in disbelief.
Stephen said, “I didn’t think you’d be that stupid.”
Time to start t
he show. “Whoa, whoa.” Arms open in front, acting the supplicant. “I’m unarmed.”
Stephen pointed the gun at him. “Very stupid.” And fired.
That happened a lot faster than Daniel had anticipated. He hadn’t gotten to use half the speech he’d prepared.
The mirror shattered into a million pieces. Stephen stopped firing, obviously stunned for a second, but it wouldn’t last long. Where was Lisa? Why hadn’t she fired yet? If she chickened out or changed her mind, this whole thing fell apart.
And then there were more gunshots, coming from Lisa’s direction.
In the few seconds he was distracted, Daniel charged at Stephen. As he moved, he saw Carl fall to the ground. No time to worry if he was okay. He better be okay.
Stephen began firing back at Lisa. Daniel leapt into him, knocking him over. He tried to wrestle the gun away from him, but only managed to knock it out of Stephen’s hand. The gun skittered across the floor. Guess he was going to have to kill him the old fashioned way.
Daniel tried to rip Stephen’s throat out with his teeth. Stephen was no longer unprepared, though. He was in the fight, and he was stronger than Daniel.
Stephen held Daniel’s shoulders, keeping him away from his throat. That was okay with Daniel. It kept Stephen’s hands occupied. Daniel’s were free to reach into his pocket and bring out plan b.
Before Daniel was able to grab what he was looking for, however, Stephen knocked Daniel to the floor, climbed on top and straddled him. Daniel put his free hand on Stephen’s chest, grabbing a handful of shirt, trying to hold Stephen off his neck, but Stephen wasn’t interested in biting. Stephen was reaching for his gun.
For whatever reason, neither Carl nor Lisa was coming to his rescue. Daniel needed to get his hand free of his pocket before Stephen could reach his weapon. He took a risk and let go of Stephen’s shirt.
The V to Z Trilogy (Book 1): Caged Page 15
