Resistant Box Set

by Perrin Briar

  Dana took her hands off the wheel lock.

  “Okay,” she said. “But make it fast. I can’t wait one minute longer than I have to.”

  Hugo leaned in close to the door.

  “How many of them are there in there with you?” Hugo said. “If you don’t know, guess. Tap when I’m close. Five.”

  No tap.

  “Ten,” Hugo said.

  No tap.

  “Fifteen,” Hugo said.

  No tap.

  “Twenty,” Hugo said.

  No tap.

  Hugo shared a look with Dana.

  “Fifty,” Dana said.

  No tap.

  “One hundred,” Dana said.

  “Not so high,” Hugo said. “If there is a smaller number, how are we supposed to know?”

  Tap, tap.

  Dana and Hugo’s eyes locked. It was a good thing Hugo had insisted on asking more questions first. They had their answer. Neither of them said it outloud, but they were both scared shitless.

  Two taps. Two hundred undead.

  Dana recovered first.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get you out of there.”

  “Dana, wait,” Hugo said.

  “We can’t waste another second,” Dana said, wrapping her hands around the wheel lock again.

  “We need to talk about this,” Hugo said.

  “What’s to talk about?” Dana said. “Someone is alive in this room. Spring them loose, and we can find out where Max went.”

  She stiffened the muscles in her arms.

  “Fine,” Hugo said, a whisper. He didn’t want the person on the other side of the door to hear him. “We’ll get them out. But let’s think about this for a minute. Please. This is my life you’re risking too.”

  It snagged Dana’s attention. She suddenly realized what she was doing. She was potentially opening the door to her own death, and that of Hugo.

  She released her grip and stepped back from the wheel lock. She couldn’t trust herself not to open it.

  Hugo leaned in close to the door.

  “We’re going to get you out of there,” he said. “But first we’re going to come up with a plan.”

  Tension momentarily relieved, Hugo stepped back and sat, virtually falling, on his ass, hard on the floor. Dana leaned with her hand against the wall.

  “I say we go in hard and fast,” Dana said.

  “You don’t honestly think we should go in there?” Hugo said. “They should come out to us. That way we can shoot them one by one as they emerge.”

  “What about the noise?” Dana said.

  “What about it?” Hugo said.

  “There’s undead behind this door too,” Dana said, gesturing to the entrance. “If we start blowing away the undead behind this other door, don’t you think the ones behind the entrance will hear it?”

  “I see your point,” Hugo said. “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Knives,” Dana said. “We use knives, cudgels, anything else we can kill them with—silently.”

  “And if they overpower us?” Hugo said.

  “Then we’ll break out the hardware,” Dana said. “I’ll stand on this side of the room, blasting away.”

  “And if they start coming in through the entrance?” Hugo said.

  “I’ll turn and deal with them,” Dana said. “It means you’ll have to watch my back and deal with the undead coming out of the room by yourself. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “I think so.”

  “I’m relying on you,” Dana said, and she put her hand on Hugo’s shoulder. “If you want, we can change positions.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Hugo said. “You’re the better fighter. You should be on that side.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Dana said.

  “Now?” Hugo said.

  “No time like the present,” Dana said.

  She moved for the wheel lock door and lowered her voice.

  “Hey,” she said. “Are you there?”

  There was a pause, and then a single tap.

  “We’re going to open the door,” Dana said. “Get back as far as you can, or you’ll get sprayed with bullets. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Dana moved into position. She took out her knife and held it in a fist.

  “When the time comes, you’ve got to make every bullet count,” Dana said. “Or we’re gonna die in this room.”

  Hugo gulped. Dana did the same.

  “Okay,” Dana said. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Eleven

  DANA CHECKED her rifle was hanging at a comfortable angle from her shoulder strap. She didn’t want to have to struggle to find it when she needed it.

  But for the moment she had her knife in her hand, clutched tight in a white-fisted grip. She was as ready as she would ever be, though she supposed she would never be completely prepared for the horror that was going to befall them both.

  Hugo similarly had his rifle slung about his shoulders. He held his own knife between his teeth. He had to use both hands, as well as all his strength and weight, to force the wheel lock open.

  He struggled, straining, turning red, sweat running down his face at the effort he exerted. Finally, just as Dana was about to offer to give him a hand, the wheel jerked, emitting a loud squeak that cried in the room and down the corridor, through the gaps in the door and out into the world beyond.

  He was stronger than Dana thought, as it wouldn’t have been easy to exert such pressure on such a stubborn lock otherwise.

  On the other side of the door, the groans were cacophonous, emitted from more than one throat. There was no mystery in where they were coming from—both outside the front door and the lock Hugo was currently working to unfurl.

  Dana could see him beginning to loosen his muscles, to relax, beginning to lean back. He was going to give up, Dana realized, as he was afraid of what the sounds of the undead meant to their position. Absolutely nothing, Dana surmised. It changed nothing.

  “Do it!” Dana said. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

  Hugo didn’t even turn to look at her. He put all his strength once again into turning the wheel. It turned with a crunch and a loud creak, and only slowed and stopped when the wheel began to fully open.

  There was a collective gasp as the door swung open and the air hissed from it. Pressurized, somehow. Dana didn’t know. Frankly, she didn’t care. The volume of the undead grew exponentially, filling the room.

  Thudding on the emergency door. And now Dana had hungry undead at both breast and back.

  Hugo hopped back, moving from the open door that mawed like a hungry mouth. The groans of the undead was loud here, hungry and pained. They could see the bodies of the undead through the door, could see the rotted fetid grey of the undead bodies and their torn clothing, those that wore them. They pressed forward against the front of their prison.

  They might never come out, Dana thought. If they couldn’t figure out how to stoop down to fit through the door. Equally concerning was how they were meant to blow them away. They couldn’t.

  One of them, the Albert Einstein of the group, began to lean forward, fighting against his cohorts in order to look through the short door. He grinned and groaned, reaching his arm through the gap. He was pushed forward and fell through the hole and onto the floor.

  “It begins,” Dana said.

  She leapt forward and struck the undead with a blow to the top of the head with a single thrust. The blade of her knife sunk into his skull to the hilt. She put her hand to his shoulder and pushed him off, her knife sliding off the edge of her blade.

  There were plenty more to replace the one who had fallen, and like a spring that had discovered the crack through which it could run, the creatures began to flow, a river as they spilled across the floor, swelling and growing.

  Dana screamed, out amongst them before they could get to their feet and prove much of a danger. She stabbed violently, thrusting with confident strokes, utilizing all the training she
’d accumulated over the years. She had never stabbed a live person before, and felt no compulsion stabbing these guys.

  Hugo was less sure, less confident, and attacked one at a time. He took the stances Edge had taught him and did not deviate from them. He stabbed one after the other, his face curled with disgust at what he was forced to do.

  They continued like that until, finally, there were too many to keep up with, the sheer numbers overpowering them.

  “Rifles!” Dana shouted over the din and groan of the undead that threatened to wash out anything they uttered.

  Dana squeezed her trigger and the bullets came out in an arc. She turned the gun, moving it round left to right, aiming at head height before coming back around and spraying the infernal creatures with more bullets, for those she had missed on the first pass.

  Dana pulled her trigger. It was a piece of metal, a tool. Nothing more. Another piece of metal, no more alive than a rock, issued forth from the tip of her gun. It had nothing to do with her.

  She entered a zen-like state, and though she was not one with the gun and its children that were hurled out of the birth canal with unbelievable force, she was quietly detached from the havoc she was unleashing upon the world.

  Hugo was doing the same on the other side of the room. Together they created a wedge of death. They may not have been the best shots in the world, but that mattered little when you were this close and spraying the undead with your bullets.

  The gunshots rattled out, exploding in a fierce burst of noise that garnered the full attention of the undead. The walking dead struck the door hard, pummelling it with their bloodied fists. The cabinet rocked forward.

  Dana cautiously stepped to put her back to it and hold it in place. There was little else she could do save add more weight and pressure to the defenses they already had. The door rocked back and forth, knocking Dana’s aim off. They simply could not deal with two sets of undead at the same time.

  Dana had, as always, bitten off more than she could chew. If she wasn’t careful, it was going to bite her in the ass—literally.

  By the time Dana’s rifle was due for another magazine change, the bodies on the floor were piled four, five, sometimes six high.

  Dana’s rifle clicked. Empty. She ejected the magazine, pulled out a fresh one, slapped it into the gun, and began firing again, all in one smooth motion. Hugo was less efficient and took twice as long, but he was still a killing machine.

  Then, all at once, like someone had hit the kill switch, there was silence. The world became still.

  Dana expected to see smoke issuing from the barrel of her gun, but it didn’t. Maybe she’d just seen too many movies.

  The lull meant they could hear just how mad and crazy the horde outside the entrance door had become, stirred by not only the enormously loud gunshots, but the burble of their comrades’ spilt blood. It might have just been undead blood, thick and congealed, not their favorite brand, but it still filled their senses and made them angry for more, desperate and screaming.

  It was hard to believe the undead would actually quieten down this time. Unless there was a distraction outside, something for them to concentrate themselves on, they would not stop.

  The blood had the opposite effect on Dana, who felt nauseated, disgusted by the smell. She supposed that if she were to ever find that scent alluring it would spell the beginning of the end for her. She did not look forward to that transformation, should it take place.

  The revelation about the increase in body temperature had struck Dana hard. What did it mean? She didn’t know. She didn’t like to think about it.

  She was some kind of distant cousin not only to these monsters, but also to the human race now that she was neither one nor the other. She was a halfbreed.

  Henry was right. That was what she was, and it would mean little to anyone with a loaded gun when they were faced with something that looked like an undead and they had to make a split second decision.

  It was something that would need to be taken into account when she found Max. She couldn’t live with her inside a community, couldn’t risk infecting her by accident.

  Could Dana allow herself to be separated from her sister? Yes, she decided, if it meant she would be safer. She would do it, though it would break her heart not to see her every day.

  “Is that all of them, do you think?” Hugo said.

  “Hey!” Dana shouted in the direction of the room where the undead had issued from.

  “Sh!” Hugo said. “Keep your voice down!”

  Dana gave him a flat look.

  “Seriously?” she said. “After all the racket we just made?”

  She turned back to the adjacent room, now, hopefully, devoid of the undead.

  “Hey!” Dana said. “Is that all of them? Have we killed them all?”

  Tap.

  Afraid to speak. After the ordeal they had been through, Dana couldn’t blame him.

  Chapter Twelve

  DANA AND HUGO waded slowly through the river of undead, aiming the business end of their rifles at them, point blank. One movement, one jerk, and Dana did not hesitate to unload.

  Dana was focused entirely on the task in hand. Out the corner of her eye she caught sight of Hugo. He was doing like her. The shy boy he had been was gone, as he unloaded mercilessly into the undead brain cases.

  He was rigid, weapon trained unwaveringly on his targets. The minutes stretched, not daring to speak and curse the blessed emptiness before them.

  They shared a look at the foot of the wheel lock door. The darkness inside was impenetrable, unyielding, and even when they raised their lights to it, it didn’t seem to give way. It didn’t only absorb all the light, but hope too, and Dana could feel herself succumbing to its effortless pull. What must it have felt like for the person trapped inside?

  “I’ll go first,” Hugo said.

  “No,” Dana said. “I’ll go. You just keep a sharp eye out in case one of these critters ain’t yet dead.”

  Dana stepped inside, and was hit instantly by a wall of smell, what happened when a space no larger than a bus was crammed with two hundred festering bodies.

  The beam of her flashlight lit entire swathes of darkness. She felt around and located a switch, but the light didn’t come on. What the original purpose of the room was, Dana didn’t know. A storage room? If it was, it hadn’t been used for that purpose in some time.

  Dead bodies lay at their feet, covered in swarms of flies.

  “There’s no one here,” Dana said.

  “You don’t think…” Hugo said with a haunted expression.

  “That she came out while we were firing?” Dana said. “No.”

  At least, she hoped not.

  “Wait,” Hugo said. “Is that… Is that her?”

  At first Dana couldn’t make out the figure at the back of the room. She was caked in dirt and filth, blending into the background like she had been carved from the same material. She was skin and bone, and could have easily passed for one of the undead, except they were more active than her. The woman would have been the runt of the litter.

  The woman’s eyes were closed. She was old, though it was difficult to guess her age.

  “Hey,” Dana said, keeping her voice soft so as not to startle the woman too much.

  But, if someone had survived through what she had been through, she had to be tough, Dana reasoned.

  “Hey,” Dana said, stronger this time.

  Still no response.

  Dana reached out and poked the woman. She snorted. Dana backed away, gun raised in case she suddenly turned.

  Dana wet her index finger and placed it under the woman’s nose. A cool draft tickled the edge running along the top of her finger, confirming she was, at least, still breathing.

  “Give me a hand,” Dana said.

  Hugo was slow in responding, frowning in deep thought. Of all the times to be lost in thought…

  “Hugo!” Dana said.

  Hugo started. They worked together
to lift the woman from her current location. She had jammed herself behind a set of pipes along the back wall, no doubt in an effort to keep some distance between herself and the undead as they cajoled and bumped into one another.

  The woman was light as a feather, barely registering in Dana’s hands. Dana and Hugo took an arm each, wrapping it around their necks to lift her. Only once they were out of the room did Dana see the nametag pinned to the woman’s top. It was, Dana realized, the same gray jumpsuit all the zombies had worn.

  “Debbie,” Dana read.

  She turned to Hugo.

  “Can you get some water?” she said.

  Hugo jumped into action, grabbing his canteen. Dana held the woman’s neck and moved it into a position that made her mouth fall open. She tipped the water into her open mouth. The moment the water touched her lips, Debbie roused, smacking her lips.

  “Debbie?” Dana said. “Can you hear me? I’m Dana. This is Hugo. We rescued you from the room you were trapped in. Can you talk?”

  The woman opened her eyes, but appeared unaware of Dana or her surroundings, and instead stared into the far distance, a location beyond this plane.

  “Can you tell me where they took my sister, Max?” Dana said. “The little girl with blonde hair you saw here. Where is she?”

  Debbie’s lips moved, but what came out was barely a whisper. Dana couldn’t make it out.

  “I can’t hear you,” Dana said. “What happened to my sister? Debbie?”

  “She’s half dead,” Hugo said. “Dehydrated, probably starving. Look at her. It’s a miracle she even managed to knock the way she did.”

  He pulled a breakfast bar from his backpack, broke off a piece, crushed it between his fingers, and held it over Debbie’s lips. He let the crumbs drop into her mouth. They didn’t come back up, so it was a good sign.

  “We need to get her some help,” Dana said.

  “We’re in a university,” Hugo said. “There must be a medical center nearby.”

  “If the fire spared it,” Dana said, “which is doubtful.”

  “What’s the closest hospital to us from here?” Hugo said.