Die Zombie Die (I Zombie Book 3)

by Jack Wallen

  “Get us the fuck out of here!” Dirt Bag screamed like a girl.

  “Don’t you think I’m trying?” Sam yelled back.

  Smoke was billowing from the squealing tires as Sam slammed his foot against the accelerator. The gathering of zombies had the car pinned in place as even more Moaners joined in on the fun. As the undead climbed on top of one another to reach the living humans, daylight was being blocked from the windows. The taxi was being slowly buried by a sea of writhing damned.

  Panic was the order of the day inside the metal chamber of doom.

  “What the hell? Sam, do something!” Sellers cried out.

  “I’m open for suggestions. Anyone have a weapon on them?” Sam asked.

  When everyone but Dom answered in the affirmative, Sam barked out his orders.

  The plan was simple, but dangerous: Roll down the windows enough to take out the zombies closest to the car. If enough of the monsters were disabled, the car would have room to move. Since the thickest collection of zombies was at the front of the car, the best direction would be reverse, so the shooters were to concentrate on the Moaners to the rear of the car.

  “It’s gonna get loud in here!” Sellers warned.

  The soldiers took a collective breath before Sam started a countdown to go time.

  “3. 2. 1. Now!” Sam bellowed.

  The windows rolled down and the shots began. The noise was deafening and the blood splatter thick. One by one the zombies fell and the taxi started inching backwards. Every shooter in the car was covered in the thick, viscous blood and broken shrapnel of the undead.

  One fairly vicious zombie managed to reach an arm through the open window and wrap its cold, thick fingers around Ronald’s neck, slowly cutting off precious oxygen. Sellers reached back, placed the barrel of her pistol to the base of the zombie’s arm and pulled off enough shots to cut through flesh and bone. Sellers’s aim was dead-on and the arm tore away from its owner, the fingers releasing Ronald from death’s very grip.

  “I owe ya for that, Courtney,” Ronald’s raspy voice spilled out.

  “I hear that a lot lately,” she replied with snark.

  “Hear? Is that what you call it? Your Calamity Jane impersonation nearly ended my hearing!” Dirt Bag yelled over the ringing in his ears.

  The car finally managed to pull out of the crowd and back far enough away to find a new route – one free of the zombie blockade. The indirect route would get them to the UN Building, only not as quickly. The misdirections and distractions were starting to wear on Sam. He knew every second he spent not blowing the shit out of the ZDC meant Bethany was that much closer to death… or worse. Unfortunately, Sam knew what worse than death meant in this case, and when the thought found purchase in his conscience his foot quickly found the furthest limits of the gas pedal. The taxi fish-tailed, slammed into a lone Moaner, and sped off through the Manhattan streets.

  “So, what’s the plan, Sam?” Sellers’s voice broke the silence inside the car.

  Sam had to confess to himself he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Up until this moment, his plan had been to gather his army, arm his troops, and storm the fort. Based on his first attempt at storming that fort, he knew a blind attack would ultimately fail.

  “You don’t have a plan, do you?” Ronald caught the hesitation and brought the lie of omission to light. “You’re running into this shit storm without an umbrella. Fuck!”

  Sam swallowed hard, the lump of pride catching in his throat. “My plan was to arrive at the location, assess the situation, and develop a strategy.”

  Sellers smacked the back of Sam’s head. “You sound like fucking middle management. If you don’t have a plan, just tell us you don’t have a God-damn plan.”

  Sam confessed his oversight. But the truth was he knew his team well enough to know they would create the best possible plan of attack shortly after arriving. That was the precise reason he gathered these specific soldiers. The group had all worked together before (minus Dom) and their ability to improvise a strike was above and beyond anything one man could devise alone. His men would prevail. The ZDC would not stand a chance against the hellfire his soldiers would rain down.

  “I can say this – entering from the roof is a no-go. That is where they will be expecting us, so we’ll be making our way in from the ground floor,” Sam said.

  “So you’re saying we just walk up to the front door, knock, and wait for some random member of this group to let us in?” Dirt Bag asked.

  Sam assured everyone they weren’t setting themselves up to fail just as he swerved sharply to avoid a head-on collision with an on-coming Screamer.

  Chapter 14

  New York City, United Nations Building

  December, 2015

  We managed to restore order both inside and outside the building. Although we were safe at the moment, who knew how long that safety would last? I decided to pair up J.T. and Markus in hopes they would find some solution to our security issue. Although Markus had little to offer our engineer by way of intellect, he did know as much about security as any man or woman in the ZDC. Together they would figure something out – or we were all very much dead.

  I needed to disappear for a moment, gather my thoughts and my wits. Everything I had worked so hard for was balanced, quite precariously, on a precipice that could send the whole of mankind plummeting to an early extinction. With but one gentle nudge, everything could crumble around me. Should that happen, the world would lose all hope of surviving this cataclysmic failure to control Evolution.

  So I sat at my desk to do the one thing I always did when faced with such a moral and professional dilemma. From my desk drawer I pulled a printed copy of the last email sent to me from Lindsay.

  My dearest Danielle,

  It has been some time since we last saw one another. I had hoped to return to our work much sooner, but it seems circumstances beyond my control have arisen.

  I have been charged with furthering research that should never have seen the light of day. But after much deliberation between my brain and my heart, I realized it was the only chance I had of ever returning to you.

  I cannot speak to you of what I am doing with the generator, but I will say that, should anything go wrong, you will receive a package with every note I have taken as well as a detailed description of how you might reverse a very tragic mistake I might have made.

  But most importantly, you must not let anyone know what you are doing. There will be those above you who would strike you down should they discover your ultimate goal.

  I miss you dearly. I hope to someday see you again.

  Sincerely,

  Lindsay

  The letter never failed to bring perspective back into focus, as well as remind me how crucial it was that the work I was doing seem perfectly in line with the ZDC’s objective. And no matter how it pained me to see the patients suffer, they could not know that what they were doing might possibly save the world.

  I carefully folded the letter and tucked it back into the safe where it remained secreted away. Should that missive find its way into the wrong hands, those wrong hands would wrap around my throat and squeeze the breath from my lungs.

  Michelle had cried herself to sleep. Her cheeks were ruddy and her eyes crusted with dried sorrow. With no one around, I gently brushed the hair out of her eyes and held her precious cheek in my hand. The girl was lovely in her innocence. My mind inadvertently wrapped itself around what confusion and fear the girl must be experiencing and sent word to my heart that it should be breaking. Luckily I had an extraordinary sense of reason and my mind was ruled by one master – logic. Not one single tear dropped from my eyes.

  No matter how heartbreaking the situation really was.

  I should have been checking the girl’s vitals, updating her chart, running stats against a known control group. But the moment wasn’t lending itself well to experimentation. There are, occasionally, moments of humanity that slip through the proverbial cracks and co
lor a second in time so profoundly that should the second slip by unnoticed, life could easily be rendered meaningless. This was one such moment. Nothing about it passed by me unnoticed. The subtle subtext, the blatant layering of meaning – it all but blanketed the room in front of my eyes.

  I wasn’t aware of how long I had been frozen in place and time, but eventually Michelle awoke, opened her eyes, and stared. She didn’t cry out as I thought she would. She didn’t attempt to break free of her bonds. She just lay there, her huge brown eyes batting at me as if with each blink her brain found a deeper, sharper focus to aid in the processing of everything around her.

  “Are you going to kill me?” Michelle’s cracked voice was a mere whisper.

  The question nudged my heart over the edge. Tears threatened to break the walls. All I could do was shake my head.

  “Are you going to turn me into one of them?” she asked, frightened.

  Again, all I could do was shake my head. She was going to undo me.

  At my response, Michelle’s tears started anew. Only this time they weren’t tears born of anger and hatred, but tears of hurt, confusion, and loss.

  “Then why are you doing this?” Michelle asked through deep, spasm-like breaths.

  “To understand,” was my complete and honest answer.

  Of course that answer was not enough. How could it be? Here was a girl impregnated by soiled seed, without any control over her own destiny. From her perspective she was no more than a prisoner in her own skin. What I wanted to tell her was how much more she really was. But it was not the time. No one could know my truth, not until the very last vestiges of hatred and horror had been stripped from the girl. Not until the babies were born. Not until I knew, for sure, that Bethany’s baby had been protected from infection. Only then could all be revealed.

  As I turned to leave the room, Michelle’s cries escalated into full-blown sobs. The sound struck me in the back like blows from a sledge hammer swung by the world’s strongest man. My first thought: What right had I to feel hurt?

  After the door closed behind me, it took my full weight, preventing me from falling to the floor in a heap. The only consolation my heart and mind could enjoy was knowing how much worse it was on the outside. At least within these walls entropy remained fairly standard.

  My thoughts drifted off to the outside world, trying to rationalize how it was a reverse Schrödinger’s Cat paradox, but logic was having none of that. There was, in all honesty, no justification and no rationalization that could process a thread of logic through this needle. All that could be done was to hop on the ride and hope it didn’t end with anyone vomiting on your shoes.

  “Professor!” One of my lab assistants hailed me from the end of the hall.

  I pulled myself up from the door, smoothed out the front of my lab coat, and walked his way. He was holding a clipboard and had a smile that said ‘Please remember I was the one that brought you good news!’

  “Yes?” My tone, in turn, said ‘Spill it and get out of my face.’

  “The amniotic fluid is ready. I believe the current levels of infection in Bethany’s blood are at the ideal level for testing.” The lab rat handed the clipboard over.

  He was right: Hormones, red and white blood cell counts, antibodies – it was all there. The time was right.

  “Follow me,” my voice commanded the pup and he did obey. “I want you to prepare the recipient of the fluid, and I will do the extraction.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the assistant barked like nothing more than a trained seal and set off to Jean’s room. I, on the other hand, turned to make my way to Bethany.

  As soon as the door opened, Bethany fired up her usual litany: Why are you doing this? When will you let me go? Where are Michelle and Jean? Are you crazy? Each one of the questions smacked me across the face with an iron gauntlet. I continued the stoicism and refused to answer a single query. The only business on hand at the moment was the extraction of the amniotic fluid.

  When I removed the sizable hypodermic needle from the Steri-Pack, Bethany nearly ripped her arms from the bindings holding her fast.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she demanded.

  When I refused to answer, she repeated the question, only this time with a distinct threatening tone.

  Holding the needle over her belly, I looked her in the eye. “I will not hurt your baby. This will, however, sting like a son of a bitch.”

  I plunged the needle into the precise spot and the exact depth. Bethany let out a scream to render all other screams meaningless. The precious fluid pulled into the hypo without resistance. Bethany continued releasing her pain through her voice, well after the needle was removed. Her near-angelic face was covered in sweat and tears.

  “Please tell me what the fuck is going on,” she managed between sobs.

  Bethany’s bright green eyes were rimmed with red and flecked with gold. They were quite possibly the most stunning pair of eyes I had ever seen. And just underneath the shell, hardened by horror and hardship, lay an innocence absolutely lost in the nightmare outside these walls.

  “Very important work,” was all I could offer.

  There was little chance Bethany could sense the honesty in my words, thanks to how the world, and the actions of the ZDC, had jaded her opinion. Of course I couldn’t tell her the complete truth any more than I could tell Michelle or Jean.

  After one last, deep stare into her pain-filled eyes, my feet led me out of the room. There was much work to be done.

  First and foremost, I had to overcome cellular rejection. Jean and Bethany were not the same blood type, so the amniotic flood would be rejected as if it were straight-up red blood cells. Fortunately, my previous work with the Heizer Sequence gave me the perfect solution for the problem.

  It was going to be arduous work, but the end results would completely justify the means.

  *

  Returning to my office offered an unwelcome surprise.

  “Hello, Professor Michaels.”

  Charles, one of the more pompous members of The Board was resting comfortably in my desk chair. He had obviously been having his way with my computer. Who knew what the man could have found. And, more importantly, was I now going to have to get rid of a prime witness to whatever crimes he wanted to pin on me?

  “Charles, what are you doing in my office? And what exactly can I do to get you out of here quickly?”

  “My, Professor, but you are in a mood.” A greasy smile crossed his lips, which could only mean one thing. “Sit, sit. I wish to have a word with you.”

  A word with you meant he had the pleasure of telling me something I wasn’t going to like. You see, The Board knew I held most of the cards in this game.

  Most of them.

  They did have a few tricks of their own they could randomly play, when they felt like I was either getting off track or not producing the results they so desired. And when they felt the need, they sent in Charles.

  Charles was one of the politicians the Collective had hired. But The Zero Day Collective didn’t hire just any politician – oh no. The ZDC hired one of the most underhanded, slimy politicians they could find. Had it not been for the Mengele Virus, Charles would most likely be in prison on charges of human trafficking or multiple counts of rape.

  “Get to the point, and then get the hell out of my office.” I remained standing and crossed my arms.

  “Such a feisty one, you are. Okay, I’ll shoot straight, as it were. We’ve decided to unleash some of your failed experiments into the population. We don’t want the plan to stall,” Charles said pointedly.

  I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. The Board knew the experiments had no business outside of my lab. Hell, those monsters had no business existing. The only reason they were allowed to continue be a part of reality was so I could keep up appearances.

  I had to stall until I could figure something out. “Charles, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Charles looked down the generou
s length of his nose at me. “What is there to understand? Danielle, my dear, we want your toys. There are still living humans roaming the planet. The first genesis of our weapon failed to bring about the desired results, so we need to alter the plan.”

  “You can’t,” I stated simply.

  “You’ve no choice in the matter, Professor Michaels. The decision has been made. The monsters are to be released.” Charles’s voice hinted at a level of frustration that gave me cause for concern.

  “Charles, you don’t understand – those things won’t last out there. They were all bred inside a Petri dish and raised in a controlled environment. You release them into the wild and who knows what might happen.”

  I tried not to give away my desperation. I believe I failed.

  “That is precisely why we are releasing them now. The one element our master plan was missing was that of true chaos. With the releasing of the Hounds of Hell, we gain that element.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Chaos? You’re joking right? Have you bothered to look outside? Chaos is rampant. Genesis has delivered nothing but!” My voice had risen far above a civil tone.

  Charles finally stood from behind my desk and straightened the wrinkles in his double Windsor knotted silk tie. “Professor Michaels, the decision has already been made. Whether you agree or not is completely irrelevant.”

  When the politician walked by me he stopped and again looked down his substantial nose at me. “I suggest you make arrangements to fully cooperate with our plans. Any decision against that recommendation would not sit well with The Board.”

  When Charles left the room I slammed the door behind him so I could throw a fit. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Those failed experiments were the only viable blood, tissue, and plasma samples I had for my secondary testing. Without those beasts I might not be able to finish the work the Board knew nothing about.

  There was only one solution to this problem: I had to extract all the samples I would need and store them so that only I knew of their existence. And since Charles failed to give me a release date, I would have to work quickly.