by Jack Wallen
The now-breathing man waved his right hand and casually flipped Sellers the bird.
“That’s the douche bag we know and loathe.” Courtney held out a hand to help the man off the floor.
“So, Commander, who else will be joining our little crew?” The tough girl flipped a chair upright and sat.
“Who else? There’s enough fire-power here to take down the Marines.” Dirt Bag punctuated his comment with a mocking hoorah.
Sam blinked a few times and pursed his lips, while Sellers and Dirt Bag simultaneously expressed their disbelief.
“I’m missing something again, aren’t I?” Dom looked around the room, unsure of the new shared secret that zipped over his head.
“Tell him, Sellers,” Dirt Bag spat out the command and rolled his eyes.
“Apparently Leamy here made a slight misjudgment thinking he could drag the most despicable man on the face of the planet into the mix.”
Sellers stood and started kicking chairs, cans, bottles… asses; anything in her path.
“All that shit I said about Dirt Bag? This guy makes him look like the friggin’ Pope,” Sellers added.
“Courtney, considering what we are going up against, I had to bring in as many as I could get,” Sam pled his case with a few extra looks to his fellow soldiers, hoping to gain some much-needed support.
“Yeah… well, you’re one less man now.” Sergeant Sellers made her decision as well as her way to the door. Just as she reached out to open the door, a scream echoed through the bar and the door crashed open, knocking the woman to the floor.
Before the dust could settle, a Screamer leaped over the threshold and onto Courtney. The undead was a naked male strong enough to swipe aside the bull-rushing Dom. Before Sellers could gather her bearings, the zombie had its fingers wrapped around her head and was bashing it on the floor of the bar.
Courtney screamed out as each blow brought more and more stars into her field of vision. But before constellations started to form, Dom was back. The short, hulk of a man rushed the zombie, shoulder first, and knocked the beast off of Sellers. Not thinking of what he was up against, Dom pinned the monster to the ground and began dropping punch after punch on the zombie’s face. The crunching sound coming from the blows not only hinted at the toughness of the young black man, but also to the ability of the undead to take a punch.
The thing simply wouldn’t give up its ghost.
“Heads up, punchy!” Dirt Bag called out.
Dom glanced Dirt Bag’s way and immediately saw the knife prepped and ready to fly. As soon as the man leaped from the zombie, the thing sat up just in time for Dirt Bag to let loose the weapon. The razor-sharp knife sliced through the dusty air and then through the zombie’s neck. The head of the monster lolled to the right and then to the left until Dom let loose another solid right hook, sending the head flying across the room.
“Shit!” Dom exhaled.
The body of the monster crumbled into a cold, fleshy heap. In a fit of rage, Sellers ran to the bag of oozing death and planted a round of kicks into the ribs of the corpse. Once Seller’s fury was finished, the only sound to be heard was her heavy breathing.
“I owe you one, Dirt Bag,” Courtney broke the silence.
“Actually, you owe me two. But who’s counting?”
The foursome stared at one another for a moment, until Sellers once again broke the silence.
“Okay, fine. I’m in. You happy?”
Chapter 9
New York City, United Nations Building
December 2015
“You’re a doctor, Jean Chavenel. Good. I need doctors. In fact, I just lost some of my best clinicians, surgeons, and lab assistants. You should come in quite handy.”
The final captive was rousing from the drug-induced sleep.
“Where am I? Who are you?” Jean spoke through a dry mouth.
“In due time. All you need to know at the moment is that you are safe… thanks to me.”
Jean attempted to sit up, but the restraints held him fast. “What is going on? Where are Bethany and Michelle?”
I had a choice. I could keep the man in the dark or I could simply tell him the truth – the truth insofar as The Collective knew – that he’d become a part of a larger cause.
I knew the Board of Directors monitored the surgery and recovery rooms. I couldn’t take a chance on letting out the real truth. Not here. Not now. So instead, I lied.
“I lied to you a moment ago. Although it is true you will come in handy, it will not be for your medical skills. You see, Dr. Chavenel, your friends are being held in two other rooms on this very floor of the UN Building. Bethany is exactly as you saw her last… we have done nothing to her. Michelle, on the other hand, has been impregnated with the sperm of my, shall I say, other experiments. You are the final piece of this puzzle. With you, I am going to test another hypothesis involving the transmission of the virus through amniotic fluid. I know this sounds barbaric, but there is a higher purpose to these experiments. Although I am not at liberty to explain that purpose to you, I can say with certainty that mankind’s survival depends upon the success of my theories.”
I hadn’t planned on divulging so much information. Nor had I planned on intermixing the smallest hint of truth in my words, but I wanted to plant some seeds in Jean’s mind that I was not the enemy.
A sense of panic began to build behind the man’s eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Bethany was impregnated by an infected man and she never turned. The barrier between fetus and mother must hold some answers. You’re a doctor, surely you can understand why I must explore this theory.” My voice remained calm.
I had said enough. The doctor was obviously incapable of grasping the magnitude of the experimentation The Zero Day Collective had begun. The man probably saw this as nothing more than the ravings of a mad scientist. From the outside looking in, the vantage point of a single man would never show the complexity of the machinations under our control.
“Dr. Chavenel, I must be leaving. Do rest. You have a long day ahead of you.”
When I left Jean’s room I locked the door from the outside. The restraints should hold, but after the information I had given the man, he would do anything he could to escape. There was one last detail I had left out of my discussion with the doctor… he had already been injected with the amniotic fluid from Bethany. Had he known this, the door would have already been broken down.
What the man didn’t know, hopefully wouldn’t kill him.
Hopefully.
I paged Markus and instructed him to keep me updated on Jean’s status. Should anything change, I was to be the first informed. My assumption, or rather my theory, was there would be no change. The amniotic fluid prevented the transmission of the virus. So when The Board heard the injection of the Mengele Virus had no adverse effect on Jean, they would have what they wanted… a product they could sell.
My skin crawled across the meat of my body at the thought of bleeding the survivors for profit. But that was the name of this game, and I had to play along until I had everything I needed. My own personal moral code had been forced below the surface lest I wound up shivering in a hot, padded cell, praying to the good God Chaos.
As I headed back to my office an alarm pierced the marble hallways of the building. There were very few reasons this particular alarm would ever be set off.
My breath stopped.
Warning, perimeter breach. Warning, perimeter breach. Containment of upper floors initiated.
The robotic, vocal warning repeated itself. I picked up my pace, the fear of this particular unknown urging me forward.
When I reached my office, I switched on the bank of monitors connected to the various security cameras on the outside and inside of the building. From this vantage point I could see every inch of the UN building. If something was about to attack us, I would know.
As soon as the north-facing camera fed its view to the monitor, my breath left my lungs. The entire f
ront entrance of the building was awash with the undead. The monsters had come in droves and were demanding entry. They knew we were inside, and we had something they wanted.
Fresh meat.
I had been assured this building was the safest in New York and that no matter how many of the creatures attacked, the doors would hold. Judging from what I saw, I was starting to doubt that assurance.
The creatures seemed to be working in some macabre and violent choreographed dance with an endgame of breaking through the barrier and reaching every living being in the building. The scene sent chills coursing over my skin. My hand reached for the phone and my finger dialed Markus’s extension without my brain giving thought to fuel the act.
“Markus, tell me those doors will hold.”
The head of security reiterated the exact claim made when The Zero Day Collective chose the UN Building as its headquarters. The video feed I was watching did nothing to back up his claim.
I pressed the Russian for a contingency plan. Markus informed me there was none. It seemed arrogance among The Board was thick as zombie blood. No contingency plan? Laughable.
“Markus, if you cannot protect this building, tell me why did I hire you?”
A stammered phrase caught between his native tongue and English tripped through the receiver. Nothing was making sense.
“I suggest you devise a plan to keep those monsters from getting into this building before I decide to toss your body out the front door and watch the beasts feast on your flesh and make their way to your tiny brain. Do you understand?”
He did. At least in theory. I wasn’t convinced. Markus was a Special Ops agent who specialized in less-than-ethical means of extracting information from prisoners. There were few men on this planet as tough. The person we needed protecting us from the horde was pregnant and tied to a hospital bed.
*
“Bethany,” I spoke with as much gentle persuasion as I could.
The patient was out cold. I was surprised she was able to sleep, given the circumstances.
“Bethany, wake up.”
“Wh – what? Who is it? What –” Slowly the medically-induced sleep was sloughing off.
“Bethany, we need your help.” My open hand gently found its way to her cheek. “Come on sweetie, we need you now.”
“What do you want?” Coherency had taken hold.
“The building is under attack. If we don’t do something to stop the zombies, they will get through the doors.” I tried to convey the urgency of the situation without inducing panic.
“You want me to help you?” Bethany’s voice was pure incredulity.
I knew exactly…
“Fuck you.”
…where this was going.
“Bethany, listen to me – we are all in real and present danger here. You, me, Michelle, Jean… everyone. You are the only one with any experience defeating these things. What should we do?”
The woman stared at me for a moment, hopefully considering our options.
“Deep throat a gun and give your brain one final money shot,” she spat out words that landed solidly at my feet.
I had no idea what to do. Interrogating prisoners was not my thing. I didn’t dare task the extraction of information to Markus or I’d end up with Mankind’s Only Hope bleeding out on the floor. I had to appeal to Bethany on every possible level.
“If you refuse, you’re not only condemning The Zero Day Collective to death, but yourself and your baby. I know you don’t want that. There are possibly thousands of those things beating down our front door. If we don’t do something now they’ll get through, and we’ll be dead. If we die, Bethany, the world dies with us.”
A quiet chill fell over the room that began with the glare in Bethany’s eyes. It was obvious the woman had no intention of helping us. What she didn’t seem to understand was she really had no choice.
“I didn’t want to do this.” I turned to the flat screen monitor mounted to the wall opposite Bethany’s bed. The screen delivered a view of the front-facing side of the building. The undead crowd had grown substantially in size. The scene could have easily been mistaken for Times Square on New Year’s Eve, only this crowd was a bit less festive… and less alive.
When Bethany laid eyes on the image it was obvious the ploy was working. Wave after wave, the zombies attacked the glass doors separating us from them. It was only a matter of time before the glass gave in.
“If you don’t help us, we won’t survive this onslaught. You know that.”
Tears rushed out of Bethany’s eyes and down her reddening cheeks, but she remained silent.
“I tell you what. I’ll leave this monitor on for you to watch. If you change your mind, press the nurse call button and I’ll be right at your side.”
And with that, I left Bethany’s room. There was no way she could continue watching that monitor much longer without breaking.
While Bethany’s resolve slowly collapsed, we still had a disaster looming just moments away. Because we had no idea when the patient would give in and help the cause, a back-up plan had to be pulled out of thin air immediately. That meant dealing with The Board. As much as I hated confronting their arrogance and ignorance, dire circumstances dictated extreme measures.
I picked up my phone and called an emergency meeting.
I hated meetings.
*
“Gentlemen, please …”
The collection of arrogance in the room would shame the whole of Hollywood. Each one of these men knew just how ‘valuable’ their lives where.
If they only knew the truth.
Every man in the room had an overly-inflated vested interest in remaining alive. For most of them it meant nothing more than the continued stockpiling of wealth. What the idiots couldn’t seem to realize was that, in our current state, wealth had no meaning. Wall Street had been abandoned and paper money was nothing more than rough toilet tissue. In the time of the apocalypse, the only wealth was life.
“We have very little time. If a plan is not put into action immediately, every living being in this building will be in danger of, well, no longer living. So it is in our best interest to remain calm and keep this meeting productive.”
I finally managed to shut the group of nervous men up long enough to make them realize their pathetic lives were actually in danger.
“Just put a Goddamn sniper on the roof and have him start picking them off one by one.”
The first of many ignorant ideas was lofted my way. I had to remind The Board how many of the walking dead we were facing. A roof full of gunners wouldn’t manage to clear the area before the zombies broke through the glass.
The next few ideas were laughable: Grenades, bombs. One of the elder statesmen actually suggested taking ‘the hose’ to them. Seeing as no one else in the room had any idea what ‘the hose’ could be, the idea was not even acknowledged.
“Why don’t we just set the lot of them on fire?” a younger member of the Board suggested. “If I remember correctly, Bethany had some luck with fire.”
The handsome gent had a point. Fire would do an efficient job of consuming the largest percentage with the highest success rate. There was one minor issue – containment. With over a thousand zombies beating down our door, how could we manage to keep such a large fire from spreading? A blaze big enough to take down the mob outside would consume the entire building and everyone in it.
The idea was good, but too risky. I let the group know so we could continue on with the next idea.
“Electrocution,” one of the Board suggested, his hand raised in the air like a shy high-schooler. I urged the man to elaborate on his idea.
“I saw this in a movie once. We flood the area with water and then drop a live line onto the ground. Every piece of flesh in contact with the water will drop to their knees with enough current surging through them to power an entire city block.”
The young man stood as he spoke. By the time his spiel finished he grinned as if he had the rapt
attention of the most important men alive today. When the Board met his idea with silence, his face flushed and he seated himself with an embarrassed thud. The youngster was mistaken. The silence was that of acknowledgment. His idea was actually the only sound one we had and, although it presented numerous issues, it was a plan that could possibly save our asses.
Fortunately, when The Zero Day Collective was forming, they made sure to include an electrical engineer among their numbers. The reason was simple – at some point the electricity was going to go out and we would need someone who could manage to get it back on. An electrical engineer was the best bet for that task.
Once the board came to the conclusion that the electrocution idea had merit, all heads turned to J.T. Fields – our engineer. J.T. was young and fresh out of M.I.T. He wasn’t the top of his class – he was better. Instead of spending his five years in college playing a game of follow-the-leader at one of the foremost engineering schools in the country, J.T. broke nearly every rule possible and found himself forging ground no student ever had. The ZDC grabbed him before his final year, finding his promise too great to wait for the formality of a degree.
“This plan is simple. But we should do it by tapping into a neighboring backup generator. We try a stunt like that with the main line and we lose power to the whole block.” J.T. didn’t even bother to stand when he addressed the room. He kicked his feet up onto the table and laced his hands behind his head. Ever the rebel.
“How long will this take?” One of the board members nervously asked.
“We have to route the feed from the generator, pull enough line to reach the ground, and then flood the area with water. We’re looking at twenty to thirty minutes, tops. If I get enough people assigned to the job and those people are actually competent.” J.T. flashed a wicked grin at the older men. He knew the tide of power had shifted his way for the moment. He liked power: He liked that it offered him the freedom to do whatever he wanted.
