“We could help,” Tera said, sounding torn between wanting to run from them and wanting to go to them.
“No, you couldn’t. You’ll just end up making yourself sick,” the woman said, sounding regretful for turning away able bodies.
“Has anyone died yet?” I asked.
“No, but we have a few who are on the verge. We’ve dug a pit to put the bodies in and burn them when they do.” She took a deep sigh before saying, “Just keep moving. There isn’t anything you can do. We’ve used up all of our medicine. The few people we’ve sent out to search the surrounding area either came back empty handed or didn’t come back at all. We have plenty of food and other supplies, so we’ve just been trying to keep people fed and hydrated.”
“I’m sorry,” Tera said, pulling off her pack to see if there was anything in her medical kit that might aid them. “Do you know what it is?”
“No, but the symptoms are pretty common: fever, vomiting, runny nose, diarrhea, cough.”
“I have some Tylenol and a few things in here that might be of some use. What’s in your bag, Jason?” Tera asked me, closing her medical kit after only keeping a few items that wouldn’t be of any help to the other group.
“I’m not sure. Take a look,” I said, nodding my head back toward the zipper of my pack.
Tera approached me and began rummaging around in my bag for a few minutes. Finally, she zipped mine back up, slung both of our medical kits toward the woman. She said, “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to keep whatever is in his,” she pointed to Russ, “in case we need it, but that should help those who’ve only recently gotten sick. I wouldn’t waste it on anyone who has been sick the longest. Chances are nothing will help them.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, grabbing for the kits.
“Can you give us a second,” I asked her. She nodded her head.
I turned only my head and signaled for Tera and Russ. Once they were near enough that I could whisper and they could still hear me, I asked something I hadn’t been able to decide for myself if I should bring up. “Should we ask about the C.D.C. lab? I don’t want to get their hopes up or send a bunch of sick people rushing out into the world in search of it, possibly infecting others as they do so.”
Russ said he didn’t know if I should say anything either. Tera looked at the woman for a long time, then said, “She’s a logical woman. Ask her.”
I looked at Russ, but he only nodded for me to go ahead.
“I have a question, then I’ll let you get back to your people,” I said, watching her fidget, anxiously wanting to get the meds to camp.
“Okay,” she replied.
“We heard a radio broadcast from a woman claiming to be at a C.D.C. lab somewhere in this area. She says she has a vaccine for the virus that is turning people into zombies. Have you heard anything about this?”
“Nope. We haven’t had a working radio in days. If we had heard anything before the last one went dead, we’d probably be there and not here. Do you think the woman is legitimate?”
“We have no idea. That’s what we want to find out,” I answered. “According to the broadcast, the lab is about another hour’s walk east of here. If we find the doctor, we’ll let her know where you are. If she has the vaccine or more meds, we’ll bring them back to you on our return trip.”
“We would appreciate that. I’d send a few with you, but we need all the able bodies we can get at the moment to help us tend to our sick,” the woman said, looking back at the tents, anxious to get back to them.
“I understand. Go to your people. If you haven’t seen us in a week, we aren’t coming,” I told her.
She nodded in understanding, said goodbye, and walked away from us.
Chapter 19
~~~Jason~~~
“What if we don’t have enough vaccines for those people, supposing she actually made one?” Russ asked as we made our way back to the road and toward our destination.
“Then we won’t have enough. That group will have to work that out amongst themselves. Although, by the time we get back to them, half of them will be dead. We’ll go ahead and take our shot at the lab, hide three for Samantha, Kayla, and Jasper, then give them the rest. Hopefully, the doctor will be able to make more that we can go back after soon or when they are well enough, they can go themselves and get it,” I answered.
“Shouldn’t we invite the doctor to come to Shore Haven?” Tera asked.
“I am. Jasper wanted me to ask her if she isn’t a nut case. But we can’t make her come.”
“Does Shore Haven have everything she’ll need, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Jasper seems to believe that we do. Surely if we don’t, we can get it. Or we can bring it with us from her lab.”
We speculated on the woman and the possible vaccine for the next two hours as we searched every house, store, clinic, barn we came across, looking for medicine to take to the tent community. We found very little. We did find two bodies that we were certain were the scouts they’d sent out in search for medicine. They both looked as if they had died of whatever illness was sweeping the camp. Finding them was a bit of a relief. The knowledge that there were still good people in the world comforted me.
Making so many stops along the way slowed our pace, but eventually, we came to the spot where the lab was supposed to be, but there was nothing but another wide-open field surrounded by woods before us.
“I don’t think we’re at the right place,” Russ said, looking from the field to me.
I looked down at my directions, map, and handheld GPS. “This is the place,” I said, confirming our location. “The lab should be right in front of us.”
“You two aren’t very bright, are you?” Tera asked, moving past us and into the field. “The lab wouldn’t be out in the open so close to town. They wouldn’t want to run the risk of making the residents nervous.”
“Then where is it?” Russ asked.
“Underground,” she said, pointing down.
“Why would it be underground?” he asked.
“To protect the research and to ensure they have room to do it. A lab like that would probably be huge.”
“How could they build it without the residents knowing?”
“That I’m not sure about. I would assume the C.D.C. built it shortly after the quakes and floods, then built or restored the town.”
“Okay, but I don’t see a hatch or anything to get to the lab,” he said.
“There wouldn’t be one right out in the open if they wanted the place to be a secret,” she said, using the butt of her gun to move around the overgrown grass to see if she could find a hidden hatch.
Coming from the Alabama territories, Russ should have understood the situation immediately, as everything I heard about the region suggested they lived off conspiracy theories, I thought, watching him for any signs of jest and not finding any. He was honestly unsure of the point of the secrecy. On the other hand, Russ had been away from the territory for a long time so he might have gotten out of the habit of thinking that way. He hadn’t forgotten all of his training, though. He carried himself and his weapon like a trained soldier.
For the next few hours, we searched the field and surrounding area for a way into the supposed underground lab. The longer we went without finding an entrance, the more I started to agree with Russ that there wasn’t anything there. After the floods and quakes, people weren’t as scared of labs as they used to be. Those labs saved a lot of lives in those early years, so I began to think he was right in believing there wasn’t a point in the C.D.C. hiding what they were doing. That train of thought led me to suppose that the woman was lying.
What the point was in sending out the broadcast if there wasn’t at least a group ready to ambush us, I wasn’t sure. The woman hadn’t set a trap for us as far as I could see. If she had, we hadn’t tripped it, or something on her end had gone wrong.
“We looked like fools wandering around a field in broad daylight in the middle of the zom
bie apocalypse,” I said, around four that afternoon.
I was tired, hungry, and ready to start back to Shore Haven. We could probably make it to the tent camp, give them the meds we found and hole up in a safe spot an hour or so away from them before dark if we headed out right then.
“We do,” agreed Russ, coming to my side. We were on the back end of the field near a row of trees, far from the road, which meant we were out of sight of anyone traveling that way, but I was growing uncomfortable with the situation, and so was Russ.
“We can’t give up,” Tera said, continuing her survey of the ground. “You two can take a break, hide in the trees from nonexistent enemies, but I’m going to find the entrance to that lab.”
Only she didn’t find it. Russ and I did. We took her advice and hid in the woods. After a while that got boring, and we started wandering around in said woods. Not too deep into the trees, we spotted a large farmhouse. The structure was new and well maintained, and it sat in a clearing that was just big enough for the house with a dirt driveway that appeared to lead further into the woods. It wasn’t large enough to be a lab, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have ties to one.
“What do you think?” Russ asked.
“I think that’s what we need to be exploring,” I replied, moving to shift my view of the house.
“I’ll get Tera,” he said, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet before darting back to the field.
The two returned to find me stalking close to the house. There weren’t any trip wires or other traps to stop an intruder. No one came out of the house or tried to shoot me, so I took that as a sign that no one was there. The two rushed to my side, as I sought to peer into one of the lower windows.
“Can you see anything?” Tera asked.
“Not really. What little I can looks like a typical farmhouse, inside and out. Nothing medical about the place,” I answered.
“Should we break in?” Russ asked.
“Not yet. I want to check out the outside first. I want to know if we’ll be walking into a trap.”
I moved to the front of the house, but couldn’t see anything through the door or windows.
“Jason, Tera, come take a look at this,” Russ called in a loud whisper. He was excited about something, that was evident in his voice, but I was beginning to believe the house was a dead end, so I didn’t think his excitement had to do with the lab. That meant that I was more than a little shocked by what I saw through the garage window.
“Is that what I think it is?” Russ asked, as Tera and I went from gaping at each other then back to the sight beyond the door.
“If you think that’s an entrance to an underground parking lot and possibly an underground lab, then yes,” I answered.
“That’s a steep incline. Someone really wanted to keep that lab a secret,” Tera said, examining the inside of the garage.
“It is,” I said, doing the same.
“Are we breaking in, now?” Russ asked, sounding too excited about the possibility.
“Yeah, but just into the garage for now,” I said, bending down to grab the handle of the door to try to pull it up in the hopes that it would lift easily on its own. It didn’t.
Russ, seeing what I was trying to do, knelt down to help, but that did us no good.
“What are you two doing?” Tera asked, taking off her pack.
“Nothing productive,” I said, righting myself and watching her.
“Breaking into most garages is relatively easy,” she said, pulling out a spool of wire. “Stack a few of those bricks right there for me to stand on.” She was pointing at a spot directly in the center of the door.
We did as she ordered and watched her feed the wire up under the weather stripping, into the garage, hook the release lever, and disengage the trolley. The door immediately started to lift.
“That was impressive,” Russ said, watching her don her pack.
“Not really. I’ve locked myself out of my house one too many times. I had to learn a few tricks. Are you guys ready to go down there?” She nodded to the darkness sloping in front of us.
“No, but I don’t think we have much choice,” Russ said from behind me. I was already heading into the garage.
Neither said another word, as they followed me. The parking garage was large, but not multi-level. Nearly every space had a vehicle inside it. No dead bodies hid in corners nor were any zombies milling amongst the cars. The more we looked, the more we realized that the place was oddly clean. No one had died in the garage, or if they had, someone had cleaned up the mess.
Shore Haven was clean, so we were used to that, but nearly everywhere else we’d been showed some sign of an outbreak. If blood and bodies didn’t cover the place, someone had trashed it. Not a single window looked busted. No trash littered the ground…nothing.
“This is creepy,” Tera said, peering into one of the cars.
“I agree,” Russ said, doing the same to an SUV a few vehicles down from her.
“Do you guys see a door anywhere?” I asked, moving to circle the wall. I doubted that whoever owned the house had built an underground garage to store a bunch of random vehicles, but I hadn’t seen a door during my first pass through of the place.
Giving me a surprised baffled look, Tera glanced from me to Russ, then to the garage around her before shaking her head.
“That’s even creepier,” Russ said, making his way to the wall in front of an SUV.
Slowly, we examined the wall encasing the garage for a hidden door or hatch or something.
Twenty minutes later, I was again, thoroughly confused as to the point of it all when Russ called out that he thought he had found something. Feeling as if he hadn’t discovered anything significant, I made my way over to him. Tera didn’t bother. She just kept searching the wall.
“What did you find?” I asked wearily.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s one of those security pads where you have to swipe the barcode on a name badge or run a fingerprint, but I can’t be sure,” he said, pointing to a five-inch by four-inch black square set flush into a concrete pillar that jutted out of the wall.
I examined the square, but I didn’t see any lights, buttons, or a place to swipe a card. The panel looked like nothing more than a piece of metal set in the concrete. There were lights on inside the garage, so the structure had electricity, but the panel didn’t appear to have any running to it.
“Tera, come look at this. Russ, see if there are any more.”
He nodded and headed off to the next pillar.
Reluctantly, Tera came up beside me to look at the black, metal square.
“What do you think it is?” I asked her when she said nothing.
“I have no idea,” she said, shrugging off her pack to dig through it. She took out a few items that had barcodes on the back and swiped them across the surface, but nothing happened. She stowed the items, looked at her pack for a long moment before reaching deep into it and pulled out her wallet. She opened it and took out a credit card. She swiped it over the surface, and the screen flashed red, giving a warning buzz before going silent. Next, she swiped the back of her driver’s license. The square did the same thing again.
“Well, at least we know what it is,” I said, searching the area near the square for anything that might be a door, but found nothing.
“There are three more,” Russ said, coming up to us and pointing to a pillar further into the garage, then to one on the other side of the garage from where we stood, and lastly up toward the entrance. “Did you figure out what they are?”
“We think they’re chip readers. When I try to use a credit card or my driver’s license on them, the screen lights up for a second and the reader beeps,” Tera said, showing him what she’d discovered. “We’ll need one of their badges to know for sure. Have either of you seen one in any of the vehicles?”
I shook my head, trying to remember if I had.
“Nope,” Russ said, seeming to do the same.
�
��I’m betting there’s a hidden door that leads to the underground lab near each of these readers, but we’re shit out of luck unless we have a card,” she said.
“Then we’ll search the garage and the house for one,” I said.
“And if we don’t find one?” Russ asked.
“Then we’ll head back home in the morning.”
“Why would someone send out that message, basically inviting people to the lab, but not make the lab accessible to them once they got here,” Tera asked, looking at the wall in confusion.
“I have no idea,” I said and left her standing there staring.
The three of us searched the garage until the light coming in from the opening dimmed and nearly went out. We decided not to break into the house until morning, and if we didn’t discover anything in it, then we’d head home. We also opted out of staying topside for the night, finding the depths of the garage comforting.
The food we ate was cold, and the ground was hard, but we slept soundly until about three in the morning when I woke to the feel of a harried brunette shaking me.
“What the…” I said, jerking out from under my blankets and going for my gun.
My actions woke Russ and Tera. In seconds, all three of us had our weapons pointed at the woman, who had backed up a bit with her hands up.
“Who are you?” I asked, scanning the garage for others.
“I’m Doctor Barnes. Who are you?” she replied, sounding as if our situation was a normal one for her.
“We’re just survivors. Are you the doctor who’s been sending out those radio broadcasts?” Tera answered.
Shore Haven Page 17
