“Frankly, it’s something like Valium,” Dale admitted. “We have you on a steady drip, and when it’s gone you should be feeling completely back to normal.”
The programmer shifted in the bed and ran a hand through his very black, very thick hair. The tops of his ears had vanished under the raven stuff and it was down at his collar in back. Dale, he knew, would agree to cut it for him. There were barber shears back in his living quarters.
“When you’re feeling better, I want to see how you’ve done. How things are proceeding.”
“Sure,” he replied. “I think things are okay. It should all be ready for when they arrive.”
“Well, of course,” the soldier said, his comment almost a snap. “They can’t come until you finish what I need you to do.” There was a look of something—not quite disgust, but perhaps of anxiety. Lieber saw it before it vanished.
“The GPS was working perfectly last time I checked. Is that doing all right?”
“Oh, yes. Good job there. No problems. I did checks with some of my own units here and we spoke to military installations in both New York and Seattle. You’ve got every damned satellite working in perfect synchronicity and boosted to their correct positions.” Finally Dale stood away and pulled up a chair and sat in it, looking on at his charge.
As he liked to tell everyone who would listen, they were losing things every day. And the longer it went on like this, the harder it would be to regain what was lost. He didn’t like what he was about to do, but Dr. Huntsman had told him it was best.
“What do you remember about the last few days, Stan?”
Lieber lay there for a few seconds. He didn’t move and just breathed deeply, in and then out. He lifted his left hand and scratched at the flesh around the IV needle. Finally, he spoke.
“I remember seeing the Lunds. Several times. They thought that if they moved on the other side of the Tower that I couldn’t see them.” He considered the high-quality telescopes he had mounted around the building. Some of the lenses had allowed him to see the Lund woman’s face as clearly as if she were sitting beside him, as close as Dale was just then.
“I let them pass by a few times. To let them feel secure. And when they’d gone, I used a few places where they’d stood as targets, to get the range. There was a parking meter where they stopped to readjust their packs once. I’d made a note of it and a day or so later, I used it for practice, to calibrate the scope I was going to use. Took me a couple of shots, but I hit the thing. Blew it completely to scrap. I’m surprised they didn’t notice; or maybe they did and just figured it for just something weird.”
He sighed, knowing that his mind had gone bad. But now, with the Colonel’s help, he would be all right. He would do his best not to do anything like that ever again.
“Continue,” Dale ordered him. He knew that Lieber was going to try to leave it at that. Huntsman had told him that’s probably what the patient would do. Best thing for it would be to bring the psychiatrist there. But of course he wanted to keep the hacker as isolated as possible. At least until the man had completed his job.
Stan raised his arm and wiped at his eyes. He really didn’t want to do it, but he knew enough about the Brit that he would just keep on pressing until he got what he wanted.
“Then I just waited. I spent almost all of my time around the windows or the balconies looking down, waiting for them to show. I completely ignored my work. I didn’t run a single sequence or write a line of code. All I did was sit out there and wait for them to show.
“Finally, they did. It was almost like Lund was offering me the shot. He scooted out ahead of his family the way he usually does…did.” He sighed, followed by a hitch in his breathing. Dale thought that the man might actually cry, but then he recovered himself and got a hand on his emotions. “And I shot him. One round. The .50 caliber sniper rifle.” He looked off into space, remembering his unemotional response.
“Funny thing is that the kick on that shot seemed to be worse than most.” His eyes lit up with something like the insanity that sometimes claimed him. “No, it didn’t seem that way, it really was that way. The gun kicked the shit out of me. Laid a nasty bruise on my right shoulder. Damned thing almost knocked me down.
“And when I looked back…Lund was gone. I mean, part of him was still there, but he was practically atomized from his stomach up. Blood everywhere. And his family. Screaming.” He finally covered his face with his hands, the realization of what he’d done was hitting home. “For a second, I thought about taking them all out. The kids. Even Mrs. Lund. To put her out of her misery.”
Colonel Dale sat and stared at the hacker, wishing that he did not need the man, which he could dispense with him once and for all and have the job completed by someone else. Anyone else. But unfortunately for everyone, there was no one else left who could do it. It had to be Lieber.
“She was screaming so loud that I could hear her from all the way up here. I knew that the walkers would zero in on her in nothing flat. Best thing was for me to provide her with covering fire, but I don’t think she’d have seen it like that. Or she might not have noticed at all.”
Then he dropped his hands and stared at the Colonel. “Why didn’t you stop me? I know you were in the building. I noticed when you came up the staircase from street level. Felt the air pressure equalize when you opened that door. Missed it today, apparently, but not that day. I knew you were there, somewhere. Why didn’t you stop me?”
Dale stared hard at his patient. “I didn’t get to the 30th Floor in time. By the time I heard your fire, I was just opening the door here. I was about ten minutes too late. But I stopped at one of the rooms to look down and see what it was you had done. Then I left, to see what I could do to help her.
“Fortunately, someone else was already there with the family by the time I hit the street, and together we got them free of the shamblers and…well…to safety.” The soldier stood and moved in close to Lieber. “You understand what you’ve done to her, to their children, don’t you? They’ll never be the same. Not if they live a long and peaceful life from here on out. They’ll have the image of Mr. Lund going to pieces right in front of their eyes. You’ve ruined them, Lieber.”
The hacker stared straight ahead, his eyes wet with tears that would not quite fall. “I know,” he admitted.
**
They came out of the building and into the subdued light of the alley on the west side. Ron had led the way, negotiating the darkened hallways and ruined spaces of the offices vacated of humans and now home to invading birds, rodents, and raccoons. A possum had barely noticed them as they’d used one room to access a stairwell, looking up only briefly to gape its jaws at them and hiss. In a bit of a surprise, they hadn’t encountered any deaders, at all. Each of them had assumed they would have to at least outpace a zombie or two, if not having to actually kill any.
As it was, they made it down the staircases and through rooms filled with paper bloated by rain and moisture, pushing aside wrecked furniture and finding the way to the alley. At the very last, Cutter found the door leading to the outside partially blocked by some errant metal trash and he had to push hard to open that last door.
Metal screeched against concrete and asphalt, making much more racket than Ron liked. Any noise was trouble, but that one was particularly bad. Sounds like that almost always drew in the shambling dead.
He drew his .45 and came out, prepared to fight if he needed to. There was nothing threatening nearby that he could see and he motioned for the others to follow. First came Oliver, who was going to remain always in the midst of the two adults (they had decided that this would permanently be the case), and Jean came out next, pausing for a second to let her eyes adjust to the brighter light.
Once again, Ron had to remind himself that she was real. She really was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Would she stay with him? How would he handle it now, if she left for more security? These were thoughts that wouldn’t stop nagging at his psych
e, try as he might to put them out of his mind.
“We don’t have far to go,” he said.
“Not even a block,” Oliver told Jean. “It’s in a really neat spot. I stopped there once when I had to rest.” The boy smiled up at Cutter. “The door has a combination lock instead of a key lock. And Ron painted the combination on the door in case anyone got in a bad fix and needed to use it. Put it right up there in red paint.” Olive smiled.
“Well, that was mighty thoughtful of you, Ron,” Jean insisted with no trace of sarcasm. “You’re quite the good Samaritan.”
Looking up and down the dirty, cluttered alley, Ron looked Jean in the eye, smiling back at her. “A lot of people do that with their safe houses,” he told her. “You never know when you might need a helping hand yourself, you know.”
“Aren’t you worried they’ll clean out your supplies? From what you and Oliver have told me, your safe houses are quite well-stocked.” Jean, too, scanned the dimensions of the dark alley, anxious for them to be out of the place.
“I don’t tell them everything,” Ron said. “Most of the stuff inside is either shut up tight with high-quality locks, or hidden where I’m the only one likely to find it.” With that, he took a step south, ready to take his group out and to safety.
Something clattered behind them. They turned to see roughly a dozen deaders stumbling out of the street in their direction, and moving toward them. At first, Cutter figured them for being agitated and in chase mode, but their faces were downcast, staring at the ground as they stumbled along. And that’s when he noticed the gigantic shadow looming behind the walkers; a shadow that became an enormous shape on four pillared legs that were in the midst of mashing zombies into black and red paste on the pavement. The zombies were actually scared of the enraged bull elephant that was taking its anger out on the things. So they’d squeezed into the confines of the alleyway to merely get away from it. They hadn’t yet noticed the trio of food items in front of them.
Without saying anything, Ron motioned for Jean and Oliver to follow him. And together they all began to move more quickly, but managed to keep their pace from becoming a panicked rush.
When they came to the far end of the alley, Ron was relatively sure that the zombies had still not spotted them. So he paused just long enough to make sure the way was clear. The safe house was to the right and less than forty meters away. All they had to do was get there and open up the door. A couple of panel vans had breathed their last just in front of the door to the rooms, and it was hidden from anyone looking on from the other side of the street or down on it from one of the high floors of the buildings opposite. It was actually a fairly secure location, and he figured it would take a bulldozer or a couple of grenades to shear off the steel door leading in.
“Let’s go,” he told them. “I’m going to jog, but that’s all. No running, unless we absolutely have to do it,” he hissed.
And, of course, that was the moment the zombies coming in behind them paid them notice. The vague idea of alarm that was in their rotten brains gave way to the lust for living flesh. The one in the lead gave out one of those hideous moans that seemed to spur all zombies into a fit of pursuit, and in less than a second, there were a dozen other dead voices joining in the unholy chorus.
God, how Ron hated that sound. If only he could, he would destroy them all.
They moved out, resisting the urge to race and merely jogged. Ron set the pace, Oliver kept up, and Jean followed, turning from time to time to look back.
The line of the undead emerged from the alley and continued their spastic chase.
“They’re locked on,” Jean said. Indeed, they were doing as they always did when the lust for meat was on them. If they figured for an easy meal, there was nothing really to keep them from going into their own version of a run. Sometimes they fooled you with their speed. They appeared to be so clumsy and so without reflex that you could be lulled into a very false sense of security and physical superiority. She knew that you had to tread a fine line between respect for their tenacity and arrogance of one’s own ability to move with a grace denied to the living dead. If you failed to do that, they would kill you, for sure.
“Yeah,” Ron told her. “I saw right off that we were in their sights. Nothing for us to do but get into the safe house and lock it up tight as a drum and wait them out. We might end up having to stay for more than just tonight,” he added, allowing just that one drop of over-confidence into his thinking.
And as they all well knew, over-confidence was the truest and most diabolical killer of them all.
Because he was so focused on the zombies, Ron almost did not see the quickly moving shape of the elephant, as it swung suddenly into sight at the far end of the avenue. It was almost like seeing one of those damned magicians doing a trick with mirrors and misdirection. One second, the way was clear, and the next, there was something roughly the size of a T-rex barreling down the street. And unfortunately for the trio of fleeing humans, it had locked its angry eyes on them.
“Shit!” Ron yelled.
“Oh, fuck,” Oliver added.
Without another word, Ron went into a run. He felt his bad knee send up an angry twinge with that first burst of speed, but there was nothing to do but go for it. If he didn’t break anything he could take some pain killers later. He just needed to make damned certain there would be a later to use for recovering.
The elephant actually trumpeted at them, and then the blast of rage was followed by a great rumbling roar coming from deep within its massive chest. It was the bull, and he was out for fucking blood. Of that, Ron and the others had no doubt at all. The murder of that calf had to be avenged.
“Are we going to make it?” Jean’s voice came up from behind as she put her hands out to usher Oliver along before her. She even found the courage to look back, away from the beast, and was somehow amused to see that the appearance of the creature had caused the zombies to falter in their pursuit. Hopefully, she would laugh about that later, and compare notes with Ron and Oliver.
“Just run!” Ron all but yelled it between clenched teeth.
The elephant was bearing down on them. The three people were almost at the door. Ron knew that he’d have only one chance to get it right.
The three skidded to a stop in front of the door, as Ron’s knee gave out. He fell to the concrete sidewalk. Looking up, the abandoned van on his left, the building on his right, he could see the elephant picking up speed. Even if he could regain his footing, he wouldn’t have time to make the three easy movements to open the combination lock. The goddamned pachyderm was probably going to get him!
“Get up!” It was Oliver, screaming at Ron. Looking back, Ron saw that the boy had worked the combination and pulled the door open. All he had to do was stand up and pull the door closed behind them.
With more speed and dexterity than he dreamed was possible, Ron did exactly that. Just as he pulled the door closed, he watched as the gigantic beast’s head bludgeoned the two-ton van aside as if it were merely a mild weight to be shoved back. There was a screeching of metal wheels against asphalt and cement gutters.
But by that time, Ron had the door securely shut. He threw a dead bolt across the door and hoped the big bull would not try to ram his massive head and tusks through the barrier. It was perhaps possible that it could do just that. He didn’t want to find out.
Outside, there was a continuation of the screech of metal against asphalt and concrete as the grand beast continued to vent its rage on the cube van. It was even possible, Ron figured, that the animal had not really seen them and had been focusing on the gang of undead that were pursuing them. Dwelling on this fact, his lungs laboring from the panic and the race, it took him a second to realize that he could hear something behind him, something coming from within his little safe house.
“Ron.” Jean’s voice was strained.
“Help!” Oliver was calling out.
Cutter turned his back on the door to see that his adopted fami
ly was struggling with a pair of zombies. The things had been sitting there, in the safe house, inert and waiting for the arrival of that which they desired: living flesh.
Ron’s hand went to his belt and he had his ever-present hammer in his fist. Without thinking at all, he strode across the cramped room and began to swing the tool at the monster who was doing its best to sink its gnashing teeth into Oliver’s exposed face. He smashed the thing’s greasy skull again and again until it fell limp, sliding to the side to lay inert on the floor.
Turning then to Jean, he saw that she had jammed her fist into her attacker’s mouth. Only her thick leather gloves protected her from what would be a lingering death if those filthy fangs penetrated the fabric. She was doing her best not to scream, thinking of course about the six-ton animals just on the opposite side of what could be, to it, a very flimsy barrier.
Instead of striking out at the thing, and perhaps causing it to bite down with even more pressure, he put his left arm under its drooling chin in a choke-hold. Pulling back with all of his strength, he peeled it free of his lover.
“Jesus,” she said.
He saw her stand to her full height, draw a knife from its sheath on her thigh, and without wasting another split second, she jammed the eight-inch blade into the rotten brain that animated the goddamned thing. It went limp in Ron’s grasp and he allowed it to drop to the floor in a wet heap.
Gasping for breath in the close quarters with the stench of the dead things all around them, the family stood weakly. Ron glanced at each, one after the other. “Are you bitten?” he finally asked.
Oliver shook his head.
Jean pulled her right glove off and examined her fingers and knuckles, turning her hand over and looking closely at the skin. Even a slight nick, she knew, would mean death. “I’m okay,” she said. He could hear the relief in her voice. And without word, he suddenly had his arms around the both of them, the ball peen hammer clattering to the hard, concrete floor that was stained with the bloody, stinking excretions from the pair of dead things.
The Coalition: Part II The Lord Of The Living (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 2) Page 6
