A round of acknowledgements chimed in, including me, but I couldn’t let that sit on me. “Stragglers, huh? Hamilton locked me inside the lab to strand me there; straggler, my ass. Where is that conniving asshole, anyway?”
I waited for Hamilton himself to respond, but both he and Richards remained silent.
“We don’t know,” Nate finally responded when no one else did. “And fuck if I care. We don’t need him to get out of here.” I heard him cluck his tongue, for a moment thinking that he’d uttered some derogatory curse under his breath but then realized he’d switched to the other frequency. “Bree, listen to me. You need to haul ass and get to us,” he whispered, now a lot more urgency in his tone. “We can’t hold this position much longer if we want to get into the corridor leading to the exit. There are at least twenty of them out there at our last count, which already puts them at a numbers advantage. Maybe more. We don’t know. We’re not just running out of time; we’re out of ammo, and soon we’ll be out of people, too.”
“Understood.” It was the urgency in his tone that made me antsy more than the message. “How is it even possible that they’re still alive? And I don’t even mean the impossible to kill part.”
“They have access to the outside,” Nate said with the kind of conviction that made my blood run cold. “This is their lair, or whatever you want to call it, but they get food from out there. Maybe they recruit as well. You saw the park deck and Metro entrances as we got up onto the plaza from down by the river? Could be full of them.” He fell silent, but then added, “They’re not hunting us down because they need to feed. They’re defending their home.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, not at all. “So there’s another way we could get out?”
“Doubt it. Or I doubt we’ll find it in the next forty minutes. The exit was unbreached when we got there so we can seal it again, and that’s our best bet. Try not to get locked in down here. You’ve already done all your superhuman feats for the year by surviving this far,” he reminded me.
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence,” I grumbled.
“It’s your ‘hold my beer’ knee-jerk reactions that worry me,” Nate confided—and got serious once more. “Get over here so we can leave. Stat.”
I was about to sign off but this was too important not to tell him. “Gita is infected. I grabbed some of the serum vials that I hope is what your brother deemed as the better upgrade and shot her up with that. I give her a thirty percent chance that she makes it. I have two more vials in my left thigh pocket. If you only manage to retrieve my badly mutilated corpse—well, more mutilated than it already is—grab the vials and inject anyone who has sustained a wound. I don’t care if they already got the serum or not. Aimes and Rodriguez weren’t flukes—they’re a symptom of a loophole in the serum. If there’s any chance that we can close it, we have to try.”
His answering laugh was a mirthless one. “Always trying to save the world from itself, huh?”
“Just those that deserve it,” I enthused. “Don’t give it to Hamilton. It’s a waste of resources.”
I would have loved to spew more venom, but the sound of glass breaking a few rooms over made me shut my trap immediately. Whether that had been an accident or not, it reminded me that I had places to be and monsters to elude.
“See you in a few,” I promised, already inching out of my hidey-hole so I could check if I was still alone, and then look into the corridor outside. I didn’t get a response, but I didn’t need one. Haul ass I would, yessir.
Chapter 16
The lab was empty, but the corridor wasn’t. I was looking both ways when I realized what had my mind on edge—the pounding at the airlock had ceased. Deep down, I knew that wasn’t due to the shambler giving up—even the stupid ones were more persistent than that. Part of me was screaming to go the other way but I had to check, slowly inching toward the bend in the corridor that would let me look back the way I had come. And, sure enough, the airlock was wide open, with not a creature in sight but smears of blood on the door frame where something must have grabbed onto, or leaned against. Something bleeding. Something—
I didn’t hear the sounds as much as somehow anticipated them, my subconscious snapping to attention while my mind was still searching. Craning my neck, I managed to get a look into the first few feet of the corridor leading straight away from the airlock—and there it was, half standing, half crouching, sniffing the air—and then turning right my way. I ducked back immediately, silently cursing my own curiosity. I had to act quickly, so I hastened down the hallway—past the lab I’d been in before—and stepped into the lab opposite of it, crouching low so that when I checked on the hallway again, my head would pop up at knee-level, hopefully below where my stalker was checking.
It was a smart fucker, that much was sure. It didn’t stop in the middle of the hallway as before, but was hunkered down mostly inside the room I’d checked first, the one with the centrifuges. Lightning-fast—and without making a sound—it dashed across into the lab where I’d stayed the longest, following my previous route. Was it tracking me by scent? Looking down at where half of my gear was splattered with blood, I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from groaning. Yeah, and it likely wasn’t having a hard time doing so. Nothing I could do about that now—except maybe confuse it.
Looking around, I assessed the layout of the lab room I was in. There was another exit back into the corridor on this side, but also one on the other, leading to the middle corridor. Trying to be sneaky, I didn’t head straight for that door but instead moved along two rows of workbenches, to the first door, and only then on to the second. Another empty-seeming corridor waited outside, but seeing the open airlock right at the end of it was a good reminder not to trust that. I checked which doors were next to windows—and had labs behind them, likely—before I moved on to the nearest, trying to go as fast as I could without running. Another lab, and likely where Gita had been hiding, judging by a smear of blood at the side of a bench, and broken glass on the floor. That must have been what I’d heard before. I lingered a little longer, hoping to leave enough of my scent to maybe throw them off Gita’s track, before leaving the lab through the connective doors into the next one.
This room was in much more disarray, bullet holes and shells all over hinting at quite the fight going down. No bottle had remained whole, leaving shards of glass everywhere. I did my best not to step on them, which was, of course, impossible, and hastened out the next door into the middle corridor as soon as I got there and checked—only to come face-to-face with one of the undead bastards who’d been lingering in the dark room across the hall.
I had a split-second to decide what to do. My first impulse was to try to shoot it, but I knew I didn’t have the time for that. The alternative was to bolt down the corridor, hoping against hope I’d get away—or at least put some distance between us and any backup that would inevitably come. What I went for was the crazy idea instead: I jumped right at it, punching it in the face as I closed the distance between us. A predator by nature, it was used to giving chase, not so much having its prey sock it a good one. It made as if to evade but hesitated too long, letting my fist hit it right between the eyes. My hand lit up with pain but I welcomed that, using the surge of adrenaline to punch it a second time, following up with a kick in the groin that made it stagger back into the darkness of the room, a muffled sound of pain escaping the muscular torso. Only then did I do the smart thing and pulled the door closed, whipped around, and flew down the corridor, the sounds of my footsteps echoing in every direction.
I got thirty yards and across one intersection before something jumped me as I went by another open door, sending me to the floor where I slid a good five feet more from my momentum. I rolled onto my side immediately, trying not to get pinned on my front, completely helpless. The shambler on my back grabbed my right shoulder and arm, wrenching me back, incidentally helping me to regain my footing. I blindly pushed my elbow back, hoping to connect with somethi
ng vital, twisting to loosen the death grip it had on me. My foot slipped, making me crash back to the floor but at least it let go of me for a second, which was all I needed to scramble up and make it through the door into another lab room. Groping blindly for the next best thing, I hurled a small desk centrifuge at the thing coming after me. It staggered back out of the door, likely more from surprise than being forced back, and I slammed the door in its face. I didn’t wait for what would happen next but tore through the lab and out the other side, ending in the outer corridor—just in time for the next shambler to get the jump on me.
I didn’t even see it before it tackled me, sending me crashing to the ground. I twisted, kicked, and rolled, but it stayed on me, heavy enough to drive the last bit of air out of my lungs. The one I’d locked out of the lab came sprinting through the same door I’d used myself and jumped right on top of the pile we were creating, both zombies momentarily keeping each other from tearing chunks out of me. This stealth thing? So not working.
Just as I thought that, shots went off, a spray of bullets hitting my assailants, making their bodies jerk. Grasping the opportunity that was slapping me in my face, I tensed and kicked as hard as I could, dislodging the first shambler so I could move enough to crawl out from underneath them. Gita was standing in the middle of the corridor, sending another salvo at the zombies the moment I was free. I pressed myself against the wall, praying that she wouldn’t hit me. She didn’t, but as soon as the second salvo ended, she had two enraged freak shamblers coming for her. They were smart, but not smart enough. Gita quickly ducked back into the maintenance room she’d been hiding in, letting me shoot at them unhindered. Normally, I would have tried aiming high, hoping for a headshot, but this time I went for their legs—if I couldn’t kill them, I might still cripple them if there were no bones left intact to keep them running. Blood, gore, and bits of bone sprayed everywhere, painting the walls and floor in grisly colors—and I was a fucking surgeon at this range with the M16. I’d have given a lot to have a shotgun now that might blast through everything at close range, but seeing both zombies crumple to the floor as their legs disintegrated was rewarding as hell.
“Come on, let’s go!” I called to Gita—a few words wouldn’t do more damage than the deafening roar of the assault rifle had already caused. She was back out and running to me as I quickly slammed a fresh magazine into the rifle, dropping the empty one to the floor. I simply didn’t have time to stow it away anywhere so I didn’t bother. I’d have to survive now to rue not having one more magazine to refill later.
“Are we done with stealth?” Gita asked as she whipped by me. I didn’t hesitate following her, our boots pounding the floor tiles loudly.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly working as planned!” Looking over my shoulder, I saw the downed shamblers still trying to get up, and, failing that, start to drag themselves along the floor after us. Up ahead, one of the doors was a reinforced one for a cold room, and as soon as we got there, I pulled it open and dragged Gita inside, shutting us both in as utter darkness enveloped us. She was panting just as hard as I was, but there was a pained, wet quality to the sounds coming from her. “How are you holding up?” Maybe a stupid question, but I hoped against hope that forcing her to pretend like she was doing better might facilitate the same.
“I’m okay,” she lied. I heard her fumbling for something; the next moment, the light affixed to her carbine came on, the sudden glare, small that it was, forcing me to screw my eyes shut.
Changing the topic was so much easier than digging deeper now that I had done everything I could—aside from trying to keep us both alive. “That’s two down. Mostly. One of them is the one I thought I killed on the other side of the airlock. No idea about the other. I still don’t get how they made it into the labs.”
Gita gave a semi shrug that could have meant anything but looked like confused agreement. “Aimes is down for the count, I think,” she added as I was still blinking.
“Did you manage to kill him?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Whatever kept him reanimated after you capped his crown, it seems to be losing its grip. I thought he was stalking me into one of the labs, but then he just stopped, staring at a wall. He was still standing but didn’t react, even when I almost fell over a chair. Not exactly responsive.” She coughed, the sound making me wince from how painful it came out. “That shit’s so fucking freaky! I know, it probably shouldn’t make a difference because, duh. Zombies everywhere! But this? This is fucking scary.”
I nodded—nothing I could add to that. “Must be some shit they did with the serum.”
“Like what you shot me up with?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“That’s supposed to be the stable version,” I reminded her. “But if it’s not, do me a favor? Keep chewing on Hamilton if you get to him. Even if it makes him harder to kill in the long run, I’d love to see him realize what’s happening to his presumably immune ass.”
“You bet,” she joked, but it was impossible to ignore the fear in her eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, patting her shoulder to try to lend my voice the conviction it was likely lacking. “There’s a good chance they killed Nate’s brother exactly because what I shot you up with was the next upgrade for the serum. Just… it’s gonna be okay.” All out of platitudes, that was all I could give her.
I saw her look around briefly, taking in the assortment of plastic material everywhere. The temperature control had long since stopped working, leaving not a trace of cool air in here, but probably a lot of mold in petri dishes thankfully locked away in refrigerators. “Think that was all of them?”
“I saw something moving out here before they came through the airlock. We’re not alone. We still need to get to the others.” I made sure that I had the next spare magazines in easy reach before I turned to the door. “You open that. I shoot everything lurking on the other side. We run. Sounds like a plan?”
I got a dejected stare from her but she reached for the handle after slamming a fresh magazine into her M4. “Sure does.”
I was ready to empty my entire magazine at a moment’s notice, but the corridor outside was empty. Well, not empty—the two shamblers I’d mutilated were about halfway down the hallway, but I ignored them. As much as I might strain my ears, I couldn’t hear anything but them, either. Gita hesitated but then hastened along the corridor to the next lab door that would lead us through that room to the central corridor once more. I followed, using slow, deliberate steps, my focus snapping to the downed shamblers every few seconds. She effortlessly wove through the workbenches but halted at one of the doors—and, instead of aiming for the middle corridor, went back to the outer. I was about to jump forward and hold her back, but she stopped inside the door frame, pointing. Joining her, I saw what she’d found: one of the panels in front of a maintenance space was knocked loose, revealing lots of lines and cables—and enough space behind all that for us to squeeze through.
I only hesitated for a second, then stepped outside and checked up and down the corridor. The downed shamblers had been aiming for the door we’d disappeared through before but immediately switched course now that they saw me again, but that was it. I gave Gita the silent signal to follow me and went to inspect the tunnel, hating having to stick my head in first. Barely any light filtered in around me as I blocked the entrance, helping my eyesight improve immediately. The back wall was made of concrete, impenetrable to anything biological, but the shamblers must have spent plenty of time digging out insulation and other layers, widening the space reserved for the power lines and other shit except for the ventilation system. It was pitch dark inside either way—and I could only see so far—so I had to trust that nothing was lurking in here. I absolutely hated that, but it was the kind of alternate route that we had been missing so far. At least nothing would be able to slam into me here—or so I hoped.
Switching the light on my M16 on, I shined it down the passage the way we had come first, then forward. S
till nothing, not even a rat scurrying away, but then the facility had been blissfully vermin-free—except for the bipedal sort. I had to pull my shoulders in as much as possible to manage to squeeze into the passage and still keep my pack on—turning sideways, it would have been easier—but it was possible. Burns, or even Nate, wouldn’t have fit, but Gita and I for once had the advantage here. With no time to waste, I only waited until Gita had squeezed in behind me before I moved forward, trying to make as few sounds as possible.
It was slow going, and I absolutely hated how the walls pressed in around me, making it impossible for me to even look back over my shoulder. It took me a good minute to reach the next access panel, what I estimated were three lab spaces out in the corridor. We had easily five times the distance to travel so I kept going. And going. I stopped at the next panel, waiting until Gita caught up with me, her movements almost silent but in here they were easy to pick out. I was just about to suggest dislodging the panel and checking on the corridor when I heard something—right on the other side of the panel. Both of us froze, Gita’s hand barely touching down on my upper arm, her fingers squeezing me tightly for a second.
I let out my breath slowly, then inhaled through my nose, ignoring my lungs as they were screaming for more air. The air back in here smelled dank but the entire complex had that latent chemical stench I’d long ago come to associate with labs. Aimes had smelled of gunfire and blood; the zombie I’d thought I’d killed, of blood and something more animalistic, yet not the typical scent of decay—which was usually more like an olfactory bomb than mere hints. I hadn’t exactly had the time to get more than a whiff of it. Now?
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 95
