Hell on Earth (Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 7)

by Jeff DeGordick

  She felt her heart break, uncertain of Wayne's fate. They had just spent such a tender night with each other, and she couldn't bear to lose him. But at the same time, she had no idea where he was, and she couldn't sacrifice everything she was working toward to try and find him. The Eden Project was too important.

  As much as it destroyed her on the inside, for now, she would have to leave Wayne to fend for himself while she rested up and secured the galanin from the training base by herself.

  The river raged by through the woods next to him. His back leaned against a log as the violent water slapped at his foot. The rest of him was on dry land on the riverbed, and he laid his head against the log and let out a long and drawn breath. So many things ached in his body, and then he turned his head and coughed up more water.

  He'd been pulled a good distance down the river by the powerful waters until it finally coughed him back out. He'd thought he was a goner there for a while, struggling to keep his head above water and breathe, sometimes taking in a mouthful of water into his lungs, but he made it.

  Almost.

  He moved his arm away from his injury and gently inspected it with his fingers. A sharp branch sticking out of the log was impaled through his midsection after the river had slammed him up against it.

  He gritted his teeth, knowing he was all alone.

  11

  DRESS UP

  Sarah took the afternoon to rest up, finding a house to take her sojourn at and find something to eat and drink. She found a suture kit and stitched up her leg, then wrapped it in bandaging. After inspecting her hip, she didn't think it was really cracked, but just badly bruised; painful, but she could walk it off. When she regained her strength, she set off for the training base. She didn't have a plan of action in mind; she would figure it out when she got there. But the prize at the end of the rope tasted so sweet, and she would do whatever it took to get it. Just one final item and she would be able to do what Ron had prophesized she'd do: finish the project that the scientists gave their very lives for.

  She made her way south, finding a familiar point on the journey from when she and Wayne had traveled there before, then she followed familiar landmarks to find the place. When she heard gunfire in the distance, she knew she was on the right track.

  Sarah managed to find a knife in a house before she came, but she had no such luck with a gun of any kind, so she would have to make do with what she had.

  The heat of the day got fairly mild, but the sun seemed especially bright and it sat directly in her eyes at about two o'clock as she looked on at the training facility from the vantage point from the woods she'd used before. She didn't have binoculars this time either, but she could see well enough.

  The facility seemed like the same swarm of activity as it had been the day before, with many soldiers cycling in and out of the outdoor firing ranges, and some tackling the obstacle course on the other side of the facility. There were even some that looked like they were going over hand-to-hand combat, including knife and gun techniques.

  Sarah thought about Trevor and how he would sneak into a place like this. She knew she wouldn't be able to just barge in there, guns blazing, but as her eyes scanned the area, she struggled to find a way inside.

  And just then, as she muttered ideas under her breath about how to find a way in, a hand fell on her shoulder.

  "You should be quieter; you never know when someone's going to sneak up on you."

  She spun around and pulled out her knife, ready to strike.

  It was Wayne.

  "Wayne!" Sarah said, shocked. "You're all right!" She jumped up to her feet and hugged him, kissing his cheek.

  He smiled. "You can't keep a good Marine down."

  "You're bleeding," she said, noticing something wet on his torso. She touched a wet splotch of blood that had seeped through his shirt.

  "Damn, did it start up again?" he asked. He lifted his shirt and showed the bandaging that he had wrapped around his midsection. "I got a little snag," he explained to her, "but luckily it missed any major organs."

  "How did you survive that river? And how on earth did you find this place on your own?" Sarah asked.

  "You'd be surprised how attuned you get to the tiniest sounds when you can't see. I just followed the paths that sounded familiar. And I think that river was a Godsend; it was either that or being run down by those zombies. I'm just surprised you managed to get away. Well... not that surprised, I guess."

  "Don't worry, I had a blast," she said.

  "Why do I feel like that's a pun?"

  "Never mind," she said. "Let's just get the item and get this whole thing over with."

  "So does that mean I've proven my worth to you, Your Highness?"

  "Shut up," she teased. She wrapped her arm around his neck and leaned in, brushing her lips on his. They shared a passionate kiss, neither one of them saying how truly happy they were to see each other.

  They turned their attention toward the facility and Wayne waited for her to relay what she was seeing. As she gave him each piece of information, he mulled it over in his head and offered suggestions. She batted down some, but considered others. The only one that really seemed to make sense was that they would need to find a way to get a pair of uniforms and pretend they were two of Glass's soldiers.

  Luckily for them, with how populated the base was, there were army trucks that went in and out on a fairly regular basis. And with this in mind, Sarah had a plan.

  She and Wayne left the facility and headed for a nearby suburb. They scrounged through garages for old nails and lumber. They fashioned a set of nail traps, similar to how she and Carly had stopped the tractor-trailer and kidnapped the two soldiers before. Then they went a step further and found some old paint that was similar in color to asphalt and covered each trap. When they were ready, they returned to the road heading to the base, and when the coast was clear, they laid the traps.

  It took a little while for a truck to come by, but when it did, Sarah and Wayne made sure it was on a fairly isolated stretch of road that nobody else nearby would be able to see.

  The traps popped one of the tires on the right side of the incoming truck and it quickly shredded apart. The brake lights came on as the vehicle slowed to a stop on the side of the road.

  Sarah and Wayne waited in the woods, watching as the driver came out to inspect the damage. It was an army transport truck with green canvas stretched over the open bed in the back. The soldiers waiting in the back to be transported into the base came out, and Sarah counted six of them, not including the driver.

  "Shit, looks like the tire blew," the driver said. He looked back at the road but didn't see the painted traps that were kicked to the side of the road by the tire.

  They all stood around and looked over the damage, and Sarah heard the driver get on the radio and say they would need to get to a tow.

  "Hey! Help!"

  The soldiers all looked toward the woods next to the road.

  "What was that?" one of them asked.

  "Sounded like a girl," another one said.

  "Help! Somebody!"

  "Probably some poor bitch having a run-in with a zombie," one of them suggested. "Leave her be."

  "Help! Please!"

  One of the soldiers found himself suddenly persuaded, letting all kinds of perverted thoughts run through his head of what he was going to do when he found this girl. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna check it out."

  "Yeah, could be she's really in trouble," another one suggested and tagged along. "She could use some help."

  Another soldier scolded the two of them. "You dumb sons of bitches. You ain't helping that broad, and you know it."

  "Oh, we'll help her all right," he said, making an obscene gesture with his crotch.

  "Well, it's gonna take a while to get a tow here anyway," the driver said. "Just don't take too long."

  "Don't worry, they won't need more than a minute," one of the soldiers waiting by the shredded tires joked.


  "Shut your mouth," the first soldier said before turning and heading for the woods. The second one tagged along behind while the others just shook their heads.

  "Please! Somebody!" Sarah said one more time to really ham it up and keep them interested.

  "Don't worry, darlin'! We're coming!"

  "Yeah, what seems to be the problem?" the other soldier said as they crept through the woods and tried to gaze past the trees in front of them and see where she was.

  Once the two soldiers got a little ways into the woods, they stopped, suddenly getting a bad feeling. They looked around and realized how far they had gone in and they started to second-guess their choices.

  The first soldier crept on slowly, raising his gun. He kept his eyes forward, but scanned them left and right as he went, being careful of each tree he passed. "I don't like the looks of this, buddy," he said to his friend. "Just stick close, and if we don't find anything in thirty seconds, we're returning back." He took another few steps. "Buddy?"

  He spun around to find out his friend was gone.

  "Hey! Where are you?" he shouted. He started to head back, and he was scared. He passed a tree, too distracted to notice Sarah's presence as she stepped out and grabbed him from behind, bending his helmet back and exposing a thin strip of flesh at his throat. Wayne came up next to her, giving her an extra hand, and he slit the soldier's throat. Sarah kicked his legs out and laid him flat out on his stomach, holding his head up and letting the blood drain on the ground rather than his armor.

  "You faggots need some help in there?" one of the soldiers from the road called, hearing the soldier's shouting.

  "Let's hurry up," Wayne suggested.

  They took the two dead soldiers and stripped them of their armor, quickly dressing themselves in it and hiding the bodies behind a log. When they were dressed, the look was complete except for one thing.

  "Your arm," Wayne said. Sarah looked around, holding the extra glove in her hand. "Here, help me pack this thing." They quickly stuffed her empty sleeve with mud and leaves and whatever they could find, trying to pack it pretty tightly to resemble the real thing as closely as possible. When they were done, Wayne helped her shove the glove up into the sleeve and pack it into the mud to hold it in place.

  "What the hell are you guys doing in here, blowing each other?" the soldier said from behind them.

  Sarah and Wayne spun around. Wayne just shook his head and shoved the guys helmet on his way by. "Shut up," he said, trying to emulate the first soldier's voice as closely as he could. "There's no one here; just someone playing games."

  The soldier shook his head as the three of them turned and headed back for the road.

  When they got back, the driver of the damaged truck told them, "Command says there's not going to be a tow for a while, and there's not another scheduled truck for about an hour. Looks like we're walking it."

  Some of the other soldiers grumbled, but Sarah and Wayne followed along as they all made their way down the road to the training facility.

  "What the hell happened to your arm?" one of the other soldiers remarked, seeing the fake arm swing limply by her side.

  "Wonder boy over here got so scared jumping at his own shadow that he tripped and wrecked his shoulder," Wayne said in his fake voice. "Probably gotta take this poor bastard to the infirmary when we get there."

  The other soldiers laughed and made fun of Sarah, as she stayed quiet and walked a step behind Wayne, using her shoulder to subtly guide him. They walked on, none of them the wiser that they had two wolves in sheep's clothing in their midst.

  12

  IDENTITY CRISIS

  The soldiers guarding the gates opened them up as they approached. They filed into the base one by one, and Sarah and Wayne felt their heart rates increase.

  "Heard you had some trouble out on the road," one of the guards said.

  "Yeah, and I was just supposed to be the driver, so now I'm stuck here until the next ride shows up."

  "Hang tight, and we'll get the rest of you guys sorted out," the guard said as they closed the gate behind them.

  "And I think we got one guy injured," the driver said, looking back at the other men with him. "Don't ask," he added.

  A few soldiers that acted as handlers, sorting incoming men into various activities and making sure they went where they were supposed to, approached the group. One of them looked over the new arrivals, asking who the injured party was.

  "Right over here," Wayne said, pointing to Sarah.

  "Okay, follow me," the handler replied.

  Sarah and Wayne did as he said, following him toward the large building in the back corner of the property.

  Another handler grabbed Wayne by the arm. "Not you. You come with me."

  Wayne began to protest, but the soldier had already yanked him away from Sarah and brought him back to the group being sorted.

  Sarah walked alone with the soldier, her mind racing as to how she was going to meet back up with Wayne. Her limp, fake arm dangled by her side.

  "What the hell did you do to that thing?" the soldier asked.

  She just grunted in the gruffest way she could. She hadn't planned on talking to anyone, and if she got caught up in much conversation on the way, her cover could be blown.

  The soldier looked back at her for a moment, then just shrugged it off and kept going.

  They entered the building and walked down a long white hallway. A set of open doors came up on their left, and Sarah looked in to see a huge gym that was filled with soldiers out of their gear, weight training or doing a variety of cardio exercises. Some of them were being injected with what Sarah guessed were steroids or other stimulants by administering doctors and nurses, and others were hooked up to machinery while they performed various physical feats while the doctors watched and scribbled down on clipboards.

  The hallway wound and twisted, and Sarah kept her eyes peeled for each room that they passed. She was looking for a medical office, Ron had said. This whole building so far seemed to be dedicated to medicine, and aside from the big gym taking up most of the building, all of the smaller rooms off the hallway seemed to be offices or labs. But none of them were labeled, and Sarah fancied that she could spend a long time getting lost in this place, looking for the box of galanin that she came for.

  She feared for Wayne, knowing that he could take care of himself, but that if he got caught up doing anything suspicious, this whole plan would go south really quickly.

  "Over here," the handler said, leading her into a room. "Report back to the gate when you're patched up." And with that, he turned and left her in the small infirmary. There were a few examination rooms off of the main room she was in, and two doctors looked up from their work. They were both dressed in white coats, and they didn't look especially busy at the moment, so they led Sarah into an examination room and told her to sit down on the table.

  One of the doctors was a short man with patchy brown hair and glasses, dense stubble on his face and thin arms. The other one seemed to be an Aryan's fantasy: a tall German with piercing blue eyes and blond hair, and he was one of the most muscular people Sarah had ever seen.

  "Have you got this one?" the smaller doctor asked. "I've got to get back to it."

  "Don't worry, I'll take care of it," the muscular doctor with a slight hint of a German accent said.

  Sarah's heart rate ratcheted up. Of course she was stuck with the muscled powerhouse, and she knew it wasn't going to be pretty. He was going to examine her arm, and that façade would last all of about two seconds, and then things were going to get really messy, really quickly.

  She leaned to the side on the table and watched the smaller doctor leave. He picked up a couple of files from a small adjoined office and then he walked out into the main hallway and disappeared, leaving Sarah and the doctor next to her as the only ones in the infirmary.

  "So what seems to be the problem here?" he asked. He looked down at the chart he was holding and then he added, "You can take off yo
ur helmet."

  No, I really don't think I can, she thought.

  When she didn't answer, he looked up from his clipboard again, confused. He was about to ask her again what the problem was, but then he noticed her arm. It looked like her shoulder was dislocated, because what she and Wayne had stuffed it with began to slide down and compact near the bottom of the sleeve.

  He seemed utterly confused for a moment. "What did you do to that?" He'd never seen anything like it, and as he reached out to take hold of her fake arm in his hands to inspect it, Sarah again leaned to the side on the table, glancing past him to make sure the coast was clear.

  The doctor picked it up and tried to bend the elbow, and when he did, shock painted his face. They exchanged a glance for only a moment, and then the situation went from calm to violent at the drop of a hat.

  Sarah tried to wrap the assault rifle she had taken off the soldier around the doctor's neck and choke him with it, but as soon as she stood up and tried to get behind him, he pressed his forearm to her chest and slammed her into the wall. The back of her helmet smacked against it and disoriented her, then he grabbed her again as she tried to lurch forward and he flung her out into the waiting room.

  She skittered across the floor. The doctor tried to trot out of the room, looking toward the hallway and opening his mouth to warn someone, but Sarah shot out her legs and kicked out his shins.

  His weight came out from under him and he hit the ground, his chin smacking on the tile.

  Sarah clambered up to her feet and threw herself on top of him, but he easily bench pressed her off, sending her flying into the air and colliding into the doorframe. She struck it and bounced down to the floor, the pain in her hip exploding again.

  "Hey!" the doctor shouted toward the hallway.

  Sarah punched him in the mouth. This seemed to anger him greatly as he turned to her with a scowl, then he shot himself up to his feet and charged at her. He plowed into her, picking her up and slamming her on the floor. The tile cracked from the force, and the wind was knocked out of her.