Wheels and Zombies (Book 2): Brooklyn, Wheels and Zombies
Page 23
She let go of my collar when the medic returned, and I stared at her with a million questions buzzing in my head. When they were about to wheel her off, her serious expression melted into a faint smile.
“Be safe and keep the kid safe, because she is something else.”
I blinked out of my daze. “Mars told me he had someone watching her,” I said. “That was you.” Angie smiled without answering.
“Thank you,” I said, knowing I would never be able to repay this debt. She gave me a final thumbs-up as they wheeled her off. I stood there for a moment watching Angie go as I contemplated her words. Unable to figure it out, I went to find Ash.
Ash had settled herself, hanging out of the back window of that massive black tank. I joined her, staring at the fire that turned the night sky into a deep orange haze.
“Zombie barbecue,” she muttered as Mars stepped around the car.
The explosion had leveled the buildings while, far beyond its walls, black soot on the ground revealed where the flames had reached. Some of the zombies caught in the explosion’s wake stood burned to a crisp in the form of a scorched terracotta army. I hoped they had found their peace.
After a moment, Mars said, “Here.” He handed me a pair of keys. I looked at him confused.
“What?”
“You two have to get out of here. The chaos will cover you. They think you’re dead.”
I shook my head. My brain hadn’t caught up yet.
“We can take the Hummer?” Ash exclaimed exuberantly. I turned for a second to look at her eyes beaming. Mars, on the other hand, gave her a sour glare.
“It’s not a Hummer, it’s a Knight XV, and it is freaking awesome.” He smiled at her as she stuck her head out the window to inspect the vehicle.
“You have to go now. Take these.” He handed me a pair of ID cards. He flashed that brilliant smile that made it hard to concentrate.
“These will carry you for a while. The owners were inside those burning buildings. I won’t report them missing. I’ll keep them on some bogus details. With everything that’s going on, I don’t think anyone will care, but only flash them if you have to.”
I looked at the photos of two young women with short hair in military attire. We should be able to pass for them.
“You’re not coming?” I asked. While I knew the answer, I couldn’t hide the expectancy in my voice. I really wanted to get to know him better.
“Can’t. I need to report back to the FBI. We have to figure out Dr. Warren’s end game,” he said.
“That’s why you need to go. He can’t know you survived,” Mars added when I didn’t speak. His hand twitched in hesitation before he took mine in his.
“I’ll miss you,” he said. The orange glow of the burning buildings did something beautiful to his face, and I reveled in his sparkling eyes.
Ash loudly cleared her throat.
“Yeah, I’ll miss you to Ash,” Mars said.
“I thought you might,” she said with a smirk.
Mars released my hand to point at some lights in the distance.
“Pass security over there. I’ll make sure they have instructions to let you by,” he said. Taking a step back, he saluted us both.
The sight of him, tall, dark, those eyes, dressed in full assault gear, made my heart to skip a beat. Without another word, he turned and walked off. That sight made my heart sink. My mouth spoke without my mind having caught up with it.
“Will we see you again?” I asked before he was out of earshot.
He stopped. He dropped his head as if he needed to think about it. Then he straightened, turned, and strutted toward me. He held a serious expression as he stopped in front of me. Gentle hands cupped my face before his lips were on mine. He kissed me passionately. It ignited a desire inside that screamed for more. I didn’t trust my legs, and I let myself fall against the knight, pulling him in at the waist. His rock-solid muscles tightened, but his touch was as gentle as a rose petal. Heat rushed through my body.
When he pulled back, I couldn’t resist the urge to hold on. Out of breath, I sucked air into my lungs while my eyes lingered on his lips, hungry for his touch. His mouth widened into a smile, and his hands tilted my chin to face him. I lost myself in his eyes until Ash intruded on the moment.
“I think you might have damaged her brain with that,” she said with a chuckle.
I felt my head turn a shade of red unnatural for a human being. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She grinned like an idiot.
“I’m sorry,” Mars muttered. “I shouldn’t have walked off, and to answer your question, you promised me a date, so, yes, we’ll see each other again.” He leaned in to kiss me.
Ash started to mutter about getting a room. She yelped when I shoved my hand in her face and pushed her inside the car. Mars eased off with a smile.
“I left you some presents in the back,” he said and gave me another quick kiss. “You have to go now.” He left me standing in a heap of desire. I watched him run off as the heat inside me retreated with him.
“Earth to Mags,” Ash’s voice seeped through my consciousness. I looked at her in confusion. Did I just find something amazing only to have lost it again? She looked at me with a faint smile as if she knew it too.
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Dr. Warren watched from a safe distance as the fire blazed. He had never felt anger so fierce as when he’d witnessed his life’s work go up in flames. He had been betrayed. Someone had released those unwholesome subjects to derail his work. He was sure of it. His gaze swept over the military vehicles surrounding the burning building. He had to find out who it was before he could relocate to his backup facility.
“Do you see them?” he asked as he searched the crowd for his favorite subjects. William narrowed his eyes as he peered at the mash of military vehicles from behind the steering wheel of the black sedan.
“No visual, but we have a strong signal,” he said, “for now.”
At William’s last words, a small inkling of panic tightened Dr. Warren’s chest. He could not lose his prize. Although close, his work was not done, and most of his research had gone up in smoke. He still had the backup files but lost the bulk of his tissue and blood samples. If the tracker failed, he had to find another way to draw her out. He let out a breath, frustrated with the setback, but he knew it was only time he had lost. He had cards to play, and once he had the backup laboratory up and running and his favorite subjects back in custody, it wouldn’t be long before he could finally make his mark on the world.
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I climbed behind the wheel and felt as if I was sitting behind the controls of a tank. Ash had closed the windows and crawled into the seat next to me. She scrutinized the ID that I’d handed her and removed a cap from one of her pockets. It must have already been in there when Mars gave us the uniforms. He had thought of everything. Ash resembled the girl in the picture even if Ash looked years younger. I glanced at the fire where I knew the women’s bodies had found their rest.
After he had been swallowed by a wave of green uniforms, I couldn’t see Mars anymore. To distract myself, I fiddled with my own cap and placed it on my head. Resigned, I set the vehicle in motion. It turned out to be ridiculously easy to drive, and I steered it to the fence line. Emergency vehicles fled past us as I queued behind a truck at the checkpoint. As Mars had promised, the guards had their instructions, and they let us pass without question.
Roadblocks send us on detours that, according to the sign, led to the Garden State Pkwy. Miles and miles of road lined with trees spread out in front of us. We passed some houses and low buildings on our left, with mostly trees on the right. Similar to I-678, the military had cleared abandoned cars from the road. I gazed at the fuel indicator. With its fuel consumption, this thing would be a challenge to keep on the road. At that moment, I felt too exhausted to care. I was just glad we were out.
“You’re quiet,” Ash said with a glance. “Candy bars on your mind?”
I smiled and jabb
ed a playful fist to her shoulder. “Make yourself useful and go see what Mars has packed for us,” I said, holding up my thumb to gesture at the back of the Knight.
Without hesitation, she made her way between the seats. Her legs sprawled behind her as she searched the stuff in the back. I heard her gasp as she fumbled around.
“It’s all our stuff,” she said, excitement oozing from her voice. “Even my chair’s back here and your Timberlands.” She hung over the back seat. For a second, I was afraid she’d get lost in the depths of this thing.
“If you don’t want him, I’ll take him,” she said with a grin when she caught me watching through the rearview mirror. I managed a smile.
She returned with my old backpack and threw it on the ground in front of her seat before she crawled back herself. She pulled out my phone and handed it to me. While Ash dug into the food, I scrolled through the phone. Someone had left the voice recorder app open, and I saw that a new file had been added. I tapped play. Mars’s voice crackled over the small speakers. I glanced at Ash, wondering if I should play it in private, but I dismissed the thought.
“Ladies, if you are listening to this, then I’m hopeful you both made it out. I’ve loaded what I could save of your things in the back of the Knight and some stuff to get you by. Mags, I hope you don’t mind I hacked your phone. I must say I enjoyed your playlist. I’m sure I won’t have to tell you to keep your heads down. Powerful people are in search of what you carry inside. I wanted you to know that my family lives on a farm in Colorado. It’s secluded, and it should be safe. You’ll be welcome there, and the coordinates are at the end of this recording. I can find you there if you want me to. Drive safe, stay alive, and we’ll meet again. Oh, and if we haven’t gotten around to it, remember to remove that tracker in your arm.”
My heart lifted at his soft-spoken words. If it weren’t for the exhaustion I felt and the doubt that gnawed at my gut, I would have shouted, Yes, I’ll meet you there. But the truth was Dr. David and anything related to him scared me. Without a doubt, Mars had deep connections with it all. Besides, I had been building my walls for such a long time it would be hard to break them down. I glanced at Ash with her shaven head, scrawny body, and paralyzed legs. Perhaps people could change. How else could I explain the love I felt for this obnoxious little kid? Besides, my three weeks of doom and gloom were long up; it was time for a change.
With a remote sense of longing, I switched apps and chose the last played song. The Knight filled with the warm voice of Bono singing a song for someone. It made my heart jump a little. I had known Mars for only a short time, but there was a connection that urged me to find out what it could become.
The thought of cutting that tracker out of my own arm gave me the chills. The reason it was there in the first place made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t see the whole picture of Dr. David’s plans. Had he made it out of that building. For some reason, I was convinced he had. And what about Father Deacon at that church? Men like him were still out there, doing Dr. David’s dirty work. Who would want a serum that created soldiers immune to zombies at such a low rate of success? Of course, the answer was obvious. Anyone with enough money and a sense of survival would have been interested. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the orange glow wasn’t there anymore. It didn’t matter. Once I got that tracker out of my arm, we’d be free from Dr. David, and none of this would matter.
Ash grinned at me as I placed the phone on the dash. I rubbed a hand over the short stubble on her head.
“Colorado, it is,” Ash said with a smirk. I looked at her sideways and let out a breath.
“We’ll see,” I replied.
It was the two of us again. I didn’t mind. We had come this far. We would face the open road and keep each other safe, and in the back of my mind, I finally allowed myself a sense of hope.
Brooklyn, Wheels and Zombies
M. Van
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Part one: Undead departures
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two: Wheels
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part Three: The Lab
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
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