Daniels pursed his lips. “If there’s anyone inside, that sure got their attention. Did we accomplish anything?”
Jesse peered through the crack as Daniels continued to pull on the knob, pressing one foot against the wall beside the door for leverage. He blew away the smoke that had gathered there. “Yeah, there’s a definite splintering; not a lot, though. I think the edge of the door slowed the bullet down a lot.”
“Okay, try a couple more shots, slightly above and below the first.”
“You got it.”
He aligned the gun again and took a shot, then adjusted the angle, lined it up again and took another shot.
Daniels yanked. Nothing happened. He let go and stepped back, flexing his hands. “Whew, it’s hard work pulling like that. Why don’t you give it a try?”
Jesse nodded and gripped the knob in both hands. He pulled, and was greeted with the sound of splintering. The door moved an inch. Jesse gave Daniels a wry grin.
“Yeah, yeah. I loosened it for you.”
Jesse laughed. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.”
“Again.”
Jesse yanked a second time. The door opened three more inches. There was enough room for Daniels to slip the butt of his rifle through. He pulled it back, ejected the round in the chamber, and slid the stock back through. Holding the barrel, he slammed it down on the board, and again. Then he nodded to Jesse.
This time when Jesse pulled, the door opened with a screech. He closed it again.
Daniels rechambered the round. “I’m left, you’re right. Look for cover. Don’t shoot unless you have to.”
“Right.”
Daniels held up three fingers, then two, then one. Jesse yanked open the door and Daniels ducked through. Jesse followed.
A shot clanged off the inside of the roll-down door behind Chick’s head. The sound of two other ricochets came from Jesse’s direction.
Daniels dove behind a tractor. A bullet hit the cowling above the huge tire he was hiding behind.
“Cease fire, cease fire! We’re just here to talk!” he shouted.
A deep voice came from fifty yards or so ahead, behind a bulldozer blade. There’d be no getting to him through that. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Hey, we knocked and called out. You didn’t answer. We had no way of knowing if there was even anyone in here. The gunfire was simply to get in the door. If you promise not to shoot, I’ll come out, unarmed, so you can see me.”
“No promises, but you can come out, slowly, with your hands up.”
“Okay.” Daniels leaned his gun against the tire and removed the pistol and knife from the holster on his hip and the thigh sheath. He laid them on the floor and stood up. He removed his backpack and dropped it. Then he raised his hands and stepped out from behind the tractor, feeling naked and exposed.
The others could cut him in half in an instant and there was nothing he could do about it, except trust them.
“Okay, step forward ten paces,” the voice called out.
He did so. It brought him close enough that they could speak without having to shout. It also meant he couldn’t dive for cover, or reach his weapons if they started shooting.
“That’s far enough. Whaddaya wanna talk about?” A rifle barrel peeked out from around the bulldozer blade.
Daniels tried to swallow a suddenly dry throat. “There’s a bunch of us, more than two dozen, living in a secure facility, not more than an hour’s walk from here. We have food, beds, running water, all the comforts of home. We’d like you to join us.”
The other’s voice was tinged with suspicion. “Yeah, and why would you want to do that? What’s in it for you?”
“Just mutual protection. There are Zoms everywhere, and aliens. A few people here and there can’t hold out indefinitely. Maybe if we can find enough people we can defend ourselves.”
The man was silent. Then a female voice whispered, “Tim, he said food. Food! Talk to him!”
The man called out, “Maybe we’re interested. Just maybe. Whadda we gotta do? Drop our weapons and come out with our hands up?” Again, the voice showed suspicion.
“Hell, no! Keep your weapons. We need all the weapons we can get. Just don’t shoot, okay?”
“Okay…we’re coming out. Don’t make any fast moves. We’re armed and we’ll shoot if we see anything suspicious. Have your other man put down his weapons and step out into the open.”
It was a question of trust. Did Daniels trust that the others weren’t simply waiting for both men to come into view before cutting them both down?
He came to a decision and nodded. “Okay.” In a louder voice, he called out over his shoulder. “Jesse, did you hear that?”
From surprisingly close, Jesse’s voice said. “I heard.” He’d managed to work his way closer, out of sight of the others.
He stepped out from behind a truck to Daniels’ right, hands empty.
Daniels spoke again. “Okay, that’s all of us. Your turn.”
“Okay, we’re coming.”
From behind the bulldozer, a man stepped into view, holding his rifle with the barrel pointing at the ceiling. Behind him walked a woman, holding a baby.
“I’m Tim Vickers, and this is my wife Andi, and our daughter Abby.
“A pleasure, Tim. I’m Byron Daniels, and this is Jesse Jefferson.”
Jesse nodded and smiled in greeting.
“A baby, huh? That must have been rough.”
Both Tim and Andi nodded.
Out from behind different machines stepped another couple, three men, a woman with two young boys, and finally two men and a woman. Three had guns, one had a baseball bat and another a pitchfork; the rest had nothing but the torn clothing on their backs.
All were emaciated.
Andi spoke in a tremulous voice. “You-you said you had food?”
She sounded so hopeful that Daniels’ heart went out to her. “Tons of it. Mostly canned and bottled goods. We also have some flour and yeast that hasn’t gone bad yet, so at least we have some fresh-baked bread. And we found some vegetables growing in a garden not too far away from us.”
The woman looked up at her man and said, “Did you hear that, Tim? Vegetables, and fresh bread!”
The man nodded. “Please, sir, do you have any of that food with you? We haven’t eaten in days, and there wasn’t much before that. We’ve been too afraid to go outside, with all those gold-skinned freaks drivin’ back and forth, and the zombies… The kids are really hungry.”
Daniels nodded. “Of course. We didn’t bring a lot with us. We weren’t expecting to be gone more than a day at most. But you’re welcome to what we have.”
With those words, the fourteen people rushed forward, some of them dropping their weapons in their haste.
Daniels led them back to where he’d left his backpack, and Jesse retrieved his.
There was nowhere near enough food for fourteen starving people. Still, the sandwiches, carrots, and crackers they’d brought were infinitely better than nothing.
“Everyone take a bite and then pass it along to the next person,” Tim ordered.
After much rustling and shoving and gobbling, the food was gone.
“Okay,” Daniels said when they were done, “Everyone grab your stuff. We’re going on foot, so just take what you can carry easily. Weapons, clothing, nothing more. We’re leaving in five minutes. Chop-chop.”
The group ran to wherever they’d been sleeping and gathered up their things. It was pitifully little, and everyone was back in three minutes. For the first time since Daniels had met them, they didn’t look as if they’d given up on life.
“Okay, this is a big group. We can’t go out there like a parade. We’ll have to cross the streets in twos and threes to minimize our exposure. When I say stop, everyone freeze. If I say drop, that means fall flat on your faces and play dead. If I say run, it means run like your lives depend on it—because they will. Everyone got that?” He looked everyone in the eye, one
by one, until he saw a nod of agreement. “And no talking. There’s no telling how good the aliens’ hearing is. Okay, then. If you all do what I say, when I say it, we should be okay. One screw up could kill us all. Do you understand that?”
The nods were more emphatic this time.
“Good. Let’s move out. Trust me, you’re gonna love your new home.”
Chapter Eleven
“What have you got for me, Doctor?” Battle Commander FronCar stood just inside the door of Dr. ZemBleth’s office.
“I wanted to show you the progress I’ve made on the hyperallergy virus.”
“Show me.”
The doctor pressed a control and a holographic image appeared in the center of the room. The image was of two indigenes in an isolation ward.
“As I said earlier, I was going to try to splice Drahtch DNA with the indigene DNA to see if I could replicate the hyperallergic reaction that we saw in a few subjects.”
“Yes, of course.”
ZemBleth nodded. “Just making sure you remembered what we talked about.”
“My memory is quite good, Doctor. Proceed.”
“Very well. My team ran DNA scans looking for markers that might suggest a susceptibility to allergens. We injected subjects subdermally with various Drahtch bodily fluids, enzymes, hormones, proteins, etc., looking to see what evoked the strongest reactions. It turned out to be extremely complicated. Just as each Drahtch’s biochemistry is unique, so is each indigene’s. We had to test samples from many Drahtch against samples from many indigenes until we found the most violent reaction. Then we combined the Drahtch DNA segments that expressed the appropriate stressor material with the indigene DNA that reacted most strongly to it.”
“And…” FronCan was losing patience with this long, drawn-out explanation.
“And, after thousands of simulations and dozens of trials, this was the result.”
He pressed another control and the holo began playing. At first, nothing happened, except that the indigenes paced back and forth, like caged animals. The doctor sped up the holo for a few seconds and then went back to normal speed. One of the subjects began coughing and sneezing, over and over. The other subject ignored her and kept pacing. The doctor fast-forwarded the holo again. Now the second subject was coughing and sneezing. Soon the first subject crumpled to the floor and began spasming. She died moments later. The doctor fast-forwarded a bit more, until the second subject likewise collapsed and died.
“So, what do you think, commander?”
A slow smile spread across FronCar’s face. “Excellent work, Doctor. When can we have this ready to deploy?”
“Not so fast. What you just saw was a best-case proof of concept. There is still a lot more work to do. Many of the subjects didn’t contract the virus—or, at least they didn’t suffer any reaction. At best a mild one. And some of the subjects died too quickly, before they were able to pass the virus on. We still need to do a lot more refining of the treatment before it’s reliable enough and effective enough to use as a weapon. If we deploy it too soon, we run the risk of the population developing an immunity to it before it has a chance to spread very far.”
FronCar nodded. “I understand. When do you think you might be ready with an effective treatment?” He held up a hand. “I’m not holding you to a firm date, just trying to get an idea of when it might be ready, so I can begin planning how best to deploy it.”
Dr. ZemBleth rocked his head from side to side and chewed his lip as he thought. “I’d say another month, give or take, would be a reasonable goal. No guarantees, though. We may run into some unforeseen snags along the way.”
“Of course. I’ll use a month as a target. Let me know when you have a better idea of when you might be finished.
“Of course, Commander. I’m looking forward to seeing it deployed as much as you are. We can finally make some headway towards eliminating those disgusting indies so we can begin settling the planet. I’m as eager to settle down below as anyone.”
FronCar smiled. “I’m glad we’re in agreement, Doctor.”
* * * *
It was a blustery day in the neighborhood. Because the wind made it unseasonably cool, both Daniels and Moose wore light jackets.
As they crossed the street, a hoot and a shriek sounded from two buildings to their right.
“There!” Moose shouted, pointing.
Eleven Zoms poured out of a storefront, charging right at the duo.
“Inside!” Daniels yelled.
The convenience store didn’t provide a lot of protection. The plate glass window had long since been shattered; still, at least the Zoms could only come at them from one direction.
“Behind the counter!”
It wouldn’t stop the Zoms, but it would slow them down enough that the two should be able to pick them off before they could get past it.
Rifles were too cumbersome in these tight quarters, so they pulled their pistols.
Two Zoms clambered through the window, mindless of the broken glass as three others dashed through the door.
Daniels put a round into the chest of the first one in. It kept coming. He had to waste a second bullet on it, and then splattered the face of the next one. Moose dropped three others as they kept coming. The men took out five more between them.
“Look out!” Moose shouted.
Three Zoms appeared from nowhere, coming from the left—where the back door was—and right through the opening at the end of the counter.
The first dove at Daniels, knocking him down and against Jesse’s legs. Jesse stumbled, causing him to miss his shot. A fourth Zom raced through the front door.
Within seconds, both men were on the floor, with all four Zoms on top of them.
Moose got one shot off before running out of ammo. A Zom wrestled Daniels’ gun from his hand. It was down to hands and teeth and knives—if the duo could get to theirs.
A Zom took a vicious bite at Daniels’ left forearm. Chick ripped his arm free and managed to kick another one off him. That gave him a split second in which to grab his knife from his thigh holster. He stabbed upward into the chest of the Zom who dove at him.
Daniels’ left hand blazed with pain as he finished off the first Zom. He cried out in agony, and then the pain stopped. Moose yanked the Zom up by his hair and slit his throat. Blood sprayed everywhere.
Daniels stood and looked around. Nothing moved but the two of them.
“Shit. That was hairy.”
“Dude! Your hand!” Moose pointed.
Daniels looked down at his hand, which was dripping blood. Then he looked at the floor. There lay a human pinky finger in a puddle of red.
“Fuck.”
Then he passed out.
* * * *
Daniels awoke to find Moose standing over him.
“You okay, Sarge?”
“Yeah. Ow!” Daniels raised his left hand to see why it hurt so much and stared at the large white bandage stained with red for a moment. “What—? Oh.”
Memory of the brawl came back to him in a rush.
“Thanks, Moose.” He waved the hand in the other’s direction.
“Hey, no problem. Good thing they had antibiotic creams and gauze and shit here. I guess a convenience store is actually a convenient place to be attacked.”
Daniels returned a weak smile for the equally weak joke.
“We’d better get you back so you can lie down somewhere safe.”
Daniels nodded and attempted to stand. He got halfway up and then fell back.
“You lost a bunch of blood, dude. You gotta take your time.”
Daniels nodded again. “No kidding. Wow. Okay, give me a hand, would you?”
He held out his right hand and Moose gripped it and pulled. Daniels used his left hand to push off with and immediately grimaced in pain. Still, it did the job and he was on his feet. Wobbly, but standing.
“You okay to walk, dude?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Moose shrugged
. “You can lean on me if you need to.”
“Thanks, Hector. I appreciate it. Let’s see how I do on my own.”
“Cool. Just don’t push it. We don’t need ya fallin’ down in the middle of the street. ‘Specially if there’s other Zoms in the area.”
“No kiddin’. Okay, let’s do it.” He started for the door.
“By the way, I got your finger.” Moose held up a plastic grocery bag. “No ice, though. Don’t know what good it’ll do without a doc to sew it back on, but I didn’t like the idea of a Zom sittin’ here gnawin’ on it after we’re gone.”
Daniels grimaced at the thought. “I appreciate it. Let’s move.”
* * * *
“You said you had a ‘fascinating development’ to show me, Doctor?”
“Yes, yes.” Dr. ZemBleth positively bubbled with excitement. “Over here.”
He led FronCar to an examination table and pointed.
“Yes, so?”
“Listen.”
The indigene grunted as it struggled with its restraints. Then, instead of the expected hoots and shrieks…
“Let me out of here, goddamn it! I have rights, you gold-painted freaks! You can’t hold me like this! I’m an American citizen, goddamn it!”
“Interesting,” FronCar said, as the two stepped away from the racket. “It sounds like actual speech. What do you suppose it’s saying?”
“Who knows? Probably what you or I would say in this situation. ‘Where am I? Who are you? Take me to your leader.’ That sort of thing.”
“Interesting,” FronCar repeated. “Why can this one speak but not the others?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s what makes it so fascinating. I presume it was spared whatever happened to the rest. But by comparing its anatomy and biology to that of the others I may be able to get a better idea of what happened here. There’s no telling how that may help my research.”
“Of course. Just be sure it doesn’t delay your efforts to create the hyperallergy virus.”
“My hope is that understanding this creature’s biology will speed up the process.”
Aliens Versus Zombies Page 10
