Deadlocked 8

by A. R. Wise

  I was certain that I’d heard the lock click open. It was a sound that I’d spent my life eagerly awaiting as I sat in this cell, and it was unmistakable.

  The glass door to the shower was cold as I pressed my hands to it, and it shook when I took my hands away. That was odd, because the shower door was supposed to be locked until the Administrators deemed it was time for me to leave my room. I never expected the door to open as I gripped the handle, but to my surprise I was allowed entry to the shower. When I went in the shower didn’t kick on like it normally would; it stayed silent and dark, just like the ready room beyond.

  The lights usually react to my entrance by turning on. Now the room’s sensors had to either be turned off or malfunctioning.

  I made my way into the ready room, my bare feet sticking to the cold tile as I tiptoed through. The sound of heavy boots clopping on the floor came from outside my door, and I inched forward to eavesdrop. Something was happening, and I wondered if one of Hero’s friends had returned to drop more bombs down into the underground base.

  My heart stirred at the thought, and I could feel my blood pumping faster through my veins. Adrenaline surged, and I knew that I was being given an opportunity to escape. The possibility of this being an elaborate ruse by my mother came to mind, but I couldn’t let that concern still me. I had to find out what was going on.

  I pushed at the door that led to the hall, and it started to ease open. Then it opened with a sudden jerk that caused me to yelp, and I saw a guard on the other side, dressed head to toe in black armor. He stared down at me through his dark visor, with tubes escaping his mouthpiece and running out on either side over his shoulders to the respirator on his back.

  When he spoke, the words came with a mechanical echo. “Cobra Dawn, get back in your room.”

  “What’s going on?” I saw other guards marching down the hall behind the man at my door, all of them dressed the same.

  “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  I watched as one of the other guards walked up to the door across the hall and opened it. Yvonne Dawn was there, willowy and afraid, twirling her blonde hair anxiously as the guard escorted her to the hallway and then in the direction of the great room.

  “Where’s Yvonne going?” I asked before I noticed that there were other girls being escorted along the hall as well, all of them headed to the same place. “Where are you taking the others?”

  “Get back in your room,” said the guard as he lifted his rifle and pointed it at me.

  I sneered and said, “You can’t shoot me.”

  “I can, and I will. Stop causing trouble and get back in your room.”

  “Where are the others going?” I asked as I watched the frightened girls being led past.

  The guard didn’t answer. Instead, he took the last step up into my ready room from the hall, and then used the butt of his gun to push me backward. The aggression was a surprise, and I staggered back until I slammed into the shower door as the guard aimed his rifle out at me, the red laser blinding me as it shined in my eyes.

  “Last chance, Cobra. Either you stay in here, nice and quiet, or I shut you up for good.”

  I nodded and said, “Okay, you win.”

  He lingered, uncertain if I could be trusted. “Don’t try coming out here. I’ll be guarding the door.” And with that, I was closed off again, locked away in my prison.

  But he’d unwittingly revealed something to me that made all the difference. He’d implied that he needed to guard me, and the only reason to guard someone’s door is if you’re afraid they’ll get out. That meant that the knockout gas that had been used on me so many times in the past wasn’t an option for them.

  This was no test by mother. Something was happening that concerned the guards, and I knew I’d never have a better chance than this to escape. But how? As confident as I was in my ability to take out one of the guards, running out into the hall to do it would result in the other guards quickly subduing me.

  My mind raced as I tried to come up with a plan. Somehow, I had to get the guard into my room. That way I could take him down without anyone seeing us. It wouldn’t be easy, but anything worthwhile rarely is.

  If I was right, and Hero’s friends had dropped more bombs into the facility, then it was reasonable to assume that the guards were trying to prepare for the same thing that had occurred the last time. I glanced up at the ceiling, and recalled the day the zombie fell down into the great hall. That had been the impetus of everything, and I tried to figure out how to convince the guard that the same thing was happening again.

  I went into the bathroom and took a roll of toilet paper off its holder. Then I returned to my bedroom and set the roll on the desk. In order for this plan to work, I had to hope that no one was watching from the cameras and relaying my actions to the guards. Of course, if that were the case then any escape attempt I made was doomed in the first place, so I set about continuing with my plan.

  I rolled up my sleeve and then bit down hard onto the skin of my forearm. I ignored the pain as I drew blood, gnashing my teeth like one of the zombies. When I’d succeeded, I dabbed the blood with some toilet paper and then stood on my chair so that I could blot it on the ceiling. I smeared the blood around one of the nearly imperceptible lines that revealed a ceiling panel, hoping to make my ruse more believable, and then I knelt down and squeezed my wound until blood seeped out onto the floor, forming a small pool.

  Next, I went to the bathroom and cleaned my self-inflicted wound, wrapped it with toilet paper, and then pulled my sleeve back over it. I hoped that the wound wouldn’t bleed enough to give me away. I had to hurry. I almost made a mistake, but caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, revealing the blood smeared around my mouth. I rinsed off, and wiped away the stubborn stain with more toilet paper.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said the guard when I opened the door behind him.

  I did my best to feign panic. “There’s blood in here! Something’s in the ceiling. I think it’s one of the things that fell down a few months ago. It’s in the ceiling. Come look. Come see!” I urged him in, but he stood warily outside. “Don’t let it eat me! You have to come in and see.”

  The guard pressed at a button on the side of his mask and then said, “Command, we’ve got a possible containment breach above the Dawn’s rooms, over.”

  I stood there watching as the guard listened to a response that I couldn’t eavesdrop on. I felt the blood on my arm begin trickle away from the shoddy bandage. I crossed my arms, still trying to pretend to be afraid, and then glanced down to see that blood had seeped down to my wrist. The material that the Dawn’s suits were made of did an admirable job of containing the leak, but I knew it would eventually become saturated as well. In my haste, I’d taken too serious a bite at myself.

  “No,” said the guard in response to someone other than me. “Nothing came through. Just blood, apparently, over.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll check it out and report back, over.” He released the small, green button beside where his ear would be under his mask, and I knew that I had to keep him from hitting that button again, or I would risk alerting every other guard in the facility when I attacked him.

  “Come on,” I said and waved him in. He followed, slow and steady, his thick boots clopping on the tile as he came. His suit rattled, and I studied how it shifted as he moved. I saw the knife at his side, and was already familiar with the way his rifle worked. I’d learned a lot in my short time on the surface, and I was going to put that knowledge to good use.

  We got to my room, and I pointed up at the smear on the ceiling. He came warily in, and then stepped closer to the pool on the floor. He clicked on the light on the underside of his rifle and shined it at the brilliant red blood on the floor.

  “That’s not Undying blood,” he said. “They bleed black.” Then he reached up to touch the button on the side of his mask that would let him communicate with the other guards.

  His hand was no long
er on the rifle. This was my chance.

  I grabbed his wrist at the same time that I kicked at the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground as I jerked his arm behind his back, causing him to cry out in pain. He wasn’t weak, but neither was I. He tried to pull away, but my grip on his arm was only meant as a diversion. He focused solely on getting his arm free while I reached down for his knife. After a quick click of the snap that held it in place, I unsheathed his blade and then released his other arm so that I could slam the back of his head with my elbow. I was perched on the back of his legs, which caused him to fall forward and plant his hands on the ground to stop from hitting the floor face first. I waited for his inevitable next move.

  He did as I expected, and tried to turn and force me off his back. I used his momentum to my advantage, and allowed us to tumble to the side, giving him false hope that he was getting the upper hand. As we rolled, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and slid my left arm under his. My left hand reached back to his helmet, and I gripped one of the tubes there, jerking upward to reveal the soft, cloth neck piece that I’d learned was there from attacking other guards again and again over the past few months.

  Every night since I’d been brought back to this prison I’d been planning for this moment. As I lay drifting to sleep, I would imagine this fight, and all of the different ways it could go. For my victim, this was a sudden and chaotic altercation, but for me it was a choreographed dance.

  With a soft, pliable section of his armor revealed, I plunged the blade deep into him. Everything had played out exactly as I’d hoped, but this was the part I couldn’t have planned for.

  Killing a person isn’t something that I was trained in, and my expectation that the man would die instantly was quickly proven false. Sticking the knife in him didn’t still him, but instead seemed to give him a jolt of strength. His body stiffened, and he ripped out of my grip, throwing me off as he spun. I was stunned as I slid away, my thigh smearing the blood I’d left on the floor, and could only watch as the guard gripped his knife with both hands and jerked it free. A spurt of his blood came out with the blade, spraying across the wall behind me, and then I saw torrents pouring down across his suit. He dropped the knife, and it clattered on the tile as he reached out for the weapon at his side. He raised the rifle, but I launched myself over him. I pinned the gun to the floor with my left hand and then used my right to claw at his already wounded neck. I dug my fingers in, pulling at the wound and forcing him to try and stop me. I got my fingers in, and felt the hot rush of blood cascading over my knuckles. He took my wrist and tried to pull me away, but that only worsened his already fatal wound.

  Our struggle lasted longer than I’d ever anticipated, and he fought to survive until we were splashing around in his blood. I had to wrap myself around him, twisting my limbs within his to keep him still, and finally his strength failed. We sat there entwined as he gasped and gurgled, and his final few breaths turned into long, desperate groans.

  Once he was dead, I stripped and started the arduous task of cleaning the blood off. After that I would get dressed and see if I couldn’t start the revolution that would free the Dawns.

  * * *

  Beatrice Dell

  “Why are we landing?” I asked.

  Gabe didn’t answer me.

  I was with the other members of The Electorate that had evacuated the facility before the Undying there had a chance to swarm the area. Gabe revealed to us that he’d been working with Hank, and even relayed some of the communications that I knew only Hank had been privy to. I was devastated that we were losing the Dawns, but at least we were still alive. It was a minor victory in the midst of a massive defeat, but as I’d said before, survival was the real game.

  There were only female members of The Electorate here with me, since this facility only housed the female Dawns. The other women were mostly just wives of wealthy investors in The Electorate, and they’d happily allowed me to take charge. They owed me their lives.

  Gabe had given me the only other headset so that he could communicate with me during our flight. We were supposed to be headed out to a place in the mountains, out where we could be certain that the Tempest Strain wouldn’t reach us. Gabe explained that The Electorate would retrieve us within the next few months, but at least we’d avoid the devastation that was about to sweep through the lowlands.

  Our flight path took us over the ruins of Denver, giving us a chance to look down on the devastation our apocalypse had wrought. I’d been looking out through the windows of the large passenger-transport style helicopter, enjoying the view it afforded, when I noticed that we were descending.

  “Gabe, why are we going down?”

  “I have to make a stop here,” said Gabe. The noise in the helicopter was loud enough that I required the helmet to hear him. “To refuel.”

  The other ladies were murmuring as they noticed our descent. “It’s okay,” I yelled out to them. “We’re just refueling.”

  Gabe landed us atop a skyscraper in Denver, using the helipad of one of the crumbling towers. After a moment, he unbuckled himself from his seat and stood up. He walked over to the door and opened it, allowing the bitterly cold air to whoosh in. The other women shouted out in disapproval.

  “Time to go,” said Gabe as he motioned at the door.

  “What?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Time to get the fuck out.” Gabe took out a pistol and pointed it at the head of the woman closest to him. She yelled out in shock and terror as he used his other hand to start unlatching her restraints.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Giving you what you deserve, Beatrice.” He flashed a toothy grin. “Welcome to hell.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said as I watched him push the other women out of the helicopter one by one. “Is someone else picking us up here?”

  He laughed and shook his head, “Nope.”

  His betrayal was suddenly apparent to me. We were being left here to die. “Gabe, listen to me. You’re making a mistake. If you take us to safety, then The Electorate will make it worth your while.”

  “Will they?” he asked with a sarcastic edge. “What will they give me?” He continued to force the other women out as he talked to me.

  “Anything you want. You’ll live like a king. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “A king?” he asked, sounding overly impressed. “That sounds like a good deal. Will I get a castle and everything?” He passed by me as he continued to unbuckle the other women and usher them out.

  “This isn’t a time for jokes, Gabe. You’re giving up a perfect life in exchange for a short one here. No one’s going to survive the next apocalypse, I can promise you that. Don’t be a fool!”

  “Come on Beatrice,” said Gabe. “You still haven’t told me what you’ll give me. If you can’t convince me, then you’re going to die out here. If you don’t die trying to get down through this building, then there’s no doubt you’ll get eaten alive when you get to the streets. Denver is infested. You need to do a better job of convincing me to save your ass. What about that castle I wanted.”

  His mocking tone revealed his disdain, but I played along anyhow. “If you want a castle, then I’ll make it happen. I’ll get you anything you want, just don’t do this.”

  “Your offer sounds pretty good, but I just don’t think I’m going to be able to take you up on it, Beatrice. My dad would never forgive me.”

  “Your dad?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.

  He smiled and nodded. “You know, I don’t think I ever properly introduced myself.” He put his gun in his left hand as he extended his right as if to shake mine. “Gabriel Scott, at your service.”

  PART SEVEN – All Good Things

  32 – The Job of a Grandmother

  Laura Conrad

  New Vineyard was coming along nicely. Tucked up on the rooftops of a mountain town, centered along what had once been a classically Americana Main Street, the refugees of the demolished
settlement had done an admirable job of building a new one.

  Rope bridges spanned the gaps between buildings, and they were designed to be retracted when not in use, allowing the town to stay hidden from any helicopters that might come through. The roofs would be our gardens, while the buildings would be our homes.

  The first thing that the refugees had built was the sturdy wall that drew a rectangle around the area. It was formidable and well-made, with razor wire looped around its length and two gates on either end of the single street that carved a path through the center of town. A third gate was built on the east side of town, and led out onto a thoroughfare that could serve as an escape route if needed. They’d also gutted the first floor of the buildings that surrounded the area, which was where we would set up the mannequins that would serve as an initial warning if any Greys came close.

  Zack and I had parked our truck inside of the gate, just behind a school bus that had been used to transport people here. The refugees of Vineyard had already started to unload the mannequins to set them up, and Zack and I planned to help. First, though, Bonnie was giving us a tour of the work they’d already accomplished.

  All the while, as Zack and I walked across the rope bridges and saw the work that the refugees had already done, I listened to the sweet sound of children playing below. They were so happy and carefree, chasing one another in a game of tag. The sound warmed my heart, even as the weather turned icy all around.

  Arthur and David were here, and they shadowed us during the tour. David excitedly told me about the children’s building, which had an entire room devoted to painting. His shirt was speckled with various colors, and he said that he’d painted something for me.

  “I can’t wait to see it,” I said as I smiled down at him. We were on the roof of one of the buildings near the south gate, where Bonnie was showing us how this spot afforded a better view of the area than any of the other buildings.