Z-Minus (Book 5)

by Perrin Briar

  Even the wounded soldiers made gasping sounds, the fear and shock catching in their throats.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Susan whispered, in case the creatures outside the hospital could hear her.

  Steve didn’t answer. When Susan looked over at him, she found he was deathly pale, his eyes wide with anger and fear. His remaining hand gripped his combat knife tight in its holster. The other soldiers looked the same.

  This was no cult. This was a virus, a vicious one that stripped all human consciousness from its host, returning it to the guise of a prehistoric ancestor, where violence was king and the only way to survive.

  The crowd scattered, most people managing to slip between the creatures like a giant game of tag. Some were on the street, bleeding out, some already unmoving, others clutching their insides, trying to force them back into their bodies.

  It was the worst thing Susan had ever seen. She felt sick. She wanted to throw up. Oaks turned away and concentrated on his breathing to stop himself from hurling. The worst was over.

  Those who managed to escape would be heading away as fast as their feet could carry them. The infected, hunger sated, at least for the moment, wandered from place to place, often standing in place, gazing at nothing in particular, their mouths moving like they were chewing cud.

  They wandered around aimlessly. They were horrific, and yet there was something mesmerizing about them, something that drew the eye so you didn’t want to turn away from them. Or show your back. Like prey toward a predator.

  These things, whatever they were, were no longer human, but animals. It was hard to have any kind of feeling for the beasts, beyond pity. But now they were their new natural enemies, and they had to be beaten.

  Z-MINUS: 4 hours 40 minutes

  It was another ten minutes before they got a good close-up look at one of the beasts. Something about the facility had attracted his attention. Half his face had been chewed off.

  The creatures appeared to have a natural curiosity, to investigate their surroundings, no doubt in their endless search for food. But perhaps it was something more than that, some lingering aspect of their humanity that peered about their surroundings in an attempt to better understand it, to better survive. But as the man drew closer, and Susan could make out the expression on his face, she knew that wasn’t the case.

  His expression was vacuous and faraway, like he was constantly looking at something in the distance. A sudden noise, to his left, grabbed his attention. He approached it, getting close, and poked and probed at the object. His face was pale white. If Susan had seen his pallid expression on a live patient she would have made him lie down and inserted a drip into his arm. He’d been badly injured, worse than she’d first thought. Blood stained his pants and had turned his shirt crimson red.

  Steve whispered to the other soldiers. They were moving into position at the entrance, forming up on either side. They began to take down the reinforcements.

  The wood snapped in their fingers as they tore it from the door, the nails wrenching and shrieking free. The infected man on the outside grunted, his attention taken with it. Taylor seized the door handle, bore its weight and prepared to pull it open.

  “What are you doing?” Susan whispered to Steve.

  “We need to see what we’re up against here,” Steve said. “If we can get one of these things in here, subdue it, we might be able to see what we’re dealing with.”

  “Sounds risky,” Susan said.

  “Riskier not to know,” Steve said.

  It made sense, though Susan didn’t much relish the idea of having one of those things inside the research center.

  Steve stood beside the door. Taylor held the door handle. Oaks stood in the middle of the room beside the garden and fountains.

  “You’ll want to stand back,” Steve said.

  Susan did. Taylor peered out the window and nodded. The coast was clear. Steve tensed his body. He nodded. Taylor turned the door handle.

  Steve began to move before the door was even fully open. He seized the infected man by his shirt and pulled him inside, flipping him over like an empty sack. The figure hit the floor, but rolled to his feet with a surprising smoothness. On his feet, he stumbled back and forth like a master of drunken boxing, his movements odd, constantly trying to stay upright.

  Taylor shut the door immediately and began piling the furniture up again. At the fountain, Oaks said, “Hey! Hey!”

  The infected man turned, slowly, on the spot, like he was on a turntable, to face the noise. But the figure was confused, his attention diverted between the noise Oaks was making with his voice, and the movements of Taylor and Steve as they hastily worked to rebuild their barricade defense.

  Oaks tapped his metal arm on a fountain, making a tinging sound that the man seemed to find mesmerizing, cocking his head to one side like a dog at an interesting new toy.

  The soldiers piled up the last of the furniture, turned, and formed a circle around the figure, a gang of bullies surrounding a weakling. It peered at them, one by one in turn.

  “Its skin’s hanging from its bones,” Taylor said.

  “He’s not a pretty thing, is he?” Oaks said.

  The figure, as if aware of the name-calling, attacked, falling with its arms out straight, right for Steve, who caught it. The creature wrapped its teeth around Steve’s metal arm, saliva dribbling. The point of Steve’s blade sliced through the creature’s cheek. The creature didn’t even seem to notice. In fact, it only seemed to press itself further onto the blade. It was moaning, groaning. The sound wasn’t loud, but vibrated low in the air and traveled far.

  “Shut it up!” Taylor said.

  Oaks pressed his hand under the creature’s chin and eased it off Steve’s blade.

  “Hold it down!” Steve said.

  “Don’t let it scratch you!” Susan said.

  The creature glared up at them. One of its eyes was missing, its skin harsh and red, half its hair singed away from the side of its face.

  “What happened to it?” Susan said.

  “Fire,” Steve said. “He was burned by fire.”

  “Looks pretty bad,” Susan said.

  “Worst I’ve seen,” Steve said. “By all rights he should be dead.”

  “Don’t count your chickens,” Oaks said. “I think he is dead.”

  “What do you mean, he’s dead?” Taylor said. “Look at him. He’s still flailing around.”

  “That he might be,” Oaks said, pressing his fingers to the infected’s throat. “But he doesn’t have a pulse.”

  The others were silent, watching this thing on the floor, drool dribbling out the corner of its mouth.

  “Are you sure?” Taylor said.

  “I might have been out of the field for a while, but I can still find a pulse,” Oaks said.

  “What are we up against here?” Steve said, turning to Susan, Phil and Richard. “What kind of virus can do this?”

  “We don’t know,” Susan said. “Phil ran some tests and found this virus kills its host. But it appears to take some time.”

  “About eight hours,” Phil said. “That’s based on the speed of the virus as it travels through the body, on the information we have.”

  “Are you sure?” Richard said.

  “Positive,” Phil said. “I have a minor in mathematics, and I can tell you it’d take around that long.”

  “Eight hours from a regular human being to one of these things?” Taylor said. “How?”

  “The virus infects the host’s cells and shuts them down,” Phil said. “Oh my God!”

  He slapped a hand over his mouth.

  “I just realized what these things are!” he said. “These things are freakin’ zombies! I didn’t realize it before, but it’s what they are!”

  “Zombies?” Taylor said. “Don’t be stupid. They’re not zombies.”

  “Then they’re damn close!” Phil said. “Look at them. Normal humans till they get infected, then they turn in
to these undead monsters!”

  He shared a wide-eyed glare with the others.

  Zombies? Susan thought. Was it possible? The virus reanimated dead cells and they’d seen them supping on people they’d slain.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Richard said, pointing to the figure on the floor, who growled and hissed.

  “Put him out of his misery,” Steve said.

  “But we’ll have a cure in a few hours,” Susan said. “Maybe we should keep him till then, and use him as a guinea pig to make sure the cure works.”

  “I wouldn’t feel safe with this thing at our backs,” Taylor said. “What if it got the jump on us?”

  “It won’t,” Susan said. “We have rooms we can lock him inside. We usually use them for chimpanzees. He won’t have a lot of space to move around, but I doubt that’s a problem for him right now.”

  Steve nodded.

  “Do it,” he said. “Pad the room before putting him inside. We don’t want him making any unnecessary noise and attracting more like him.”

  Susan looked at the figure on the floor. They were up against a dark, dangerous shadow form of themselves. She could only pray their humanity and ingenuity were a match for them.

  Z-MINUS: 4 hours 23 minutes

  Infected wandered up and down the road, lost. Susan couldn’t stop watching them. They just stood there, shuffling their feet. They lacked direction, in need of help, but Susan could sense in her bones that the kind of help they needed wasn’t the type she could give them. There was something wrong with these people. It was in the way they walked, the way they moved. Unnatural.

  An infected bumped into a car. It’s lights flashed and the horn honked. The infected wasted no time in tearing into the vehicle, pulling the parts off and scratching the paintwork. More of the creatures approached, growling and striking with clawed hands.

  The alarm eventually stopped, but only after the infected had torn the engine to pieces. And the creatures still kept tearing at it. Soon they were inside and tearing at the upholstery. Their lack of apparent vigilance was just a façade. Once something caught their eye, they were fixated on it, giving it their whole undivided attention.

  “They’re really not human any longer, are they?” Richard said.

  “No,” Susan said. “I don’t think they are.”

  “We can’t stop them,” Richard said. “Not if they knew we were in here. They’re going to get in here and kill us, no matter what we try and do.”

  “We don’t need to stop them,” Susan said. “Only slow them down enough for Archie to do his business. If we can do that, we win.”

  But could they survive that long? If the undead tore at the research center the same way they had the car…

  “They don’t know we’re here,” Susan said. “We’re safe.”

  “Yes, but for how long?” Richard said.

  Z-MINUS: 4 hours 3 minutes

  The events and discoveries of the past hour had thrown them all for a loop, none of them quite capable of dealing with what they’d seen. Zombies. That was what they were up against. The living dead. Something from a Sam Raimi movie. But there it was, and here they were. In the eyes of the beast with nowhere to escape.

  Steve and Oaks stood at the window, looking out with binoculars. Susan could tell by their silence and the way they kept returning to look at the same spot outside that something had gotten their attention.

  “What are you looking at?” Susan said.

  “There’s someone out there,” Steve said.

  “Care to be more specific?” Susan said.

  “I think he’s human,” Oaks said, peering through the binoculars. “Uninfected, I mean. Look. He’s flashing a light in Morse code now.”

  “What’s he saying?” Susan said.

  Steve focused on the flashing light at the edge of the park, emitted from between two large trees. There was a pause as he received the whole message. A smile bent his features.

  “It’s Jericho,” Steve said.

  “Jericho?” Susan said. “Who’s that?”

  “My friend with the weapons,” Steve said. “The bastard actually made it here!”

  “There’s some profanity involved in the message, sir,” Oaks said, eying Susan uncertainly.

  Susan smiled. Oaks was young and unsure of himself.

  “I forgive you,” Susan said. “Whatever you have to say.”

  Oaks gulped, then nodded.

  “He’s saying to let him the eff in or he’s going to eff-ing throw these eff-ing weapons away right now,” he said, cheeks burning red.

  Steve grinned.

  “I wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to come,” he said, “until I told him there would be plenty to shoot at.”

  “Great,” Susan said. “But how are we going to get him in here with all those things out there?”

  “We’ll need to distract them,” Steve said. “It doesn’t need to be much. They’re dumb creatures.”

  “Any ideas?” Susan said. “Preferably it’ll be something that doesn’t require us to have to go out there to meet them and put us in harm’s way.”

  “They’re attracted to noise,” Oaks said, “so maybe there’s something we can do with that.”

  The idea of going outside and making a ton of noise in an effort to attract the monsters didn’t exactly excite Susan. But what if it didn’t have to be a person?

  “I’ve got an idea,” Susan said. “Wait here.”

  Susan took off at a run up a flight of stairs. Detritus lay discarded and tossed about the corridor like the clogged veins of an obese giant. She came to a large room with a dozen small beds down either side of it. It had been the children’s ward, but now it was empty.

  Susan pulled up the lid of a large box and came out with a remote control 4x4. She snatched up the iPod and speakers too, and carried them down the stairs.

  “Here,” Susan said, rejoining the soldiers. “This is how we’ll get your friend Jericho in here.”

  “Jericho might not be the tallest guy,” Steve said. “But even he couldn’t fit in there.”

  “We’ll strap the iPod to the top and send the car outside,” Susan said. “Then we’ll drive it away from us. When the distance is good, we can turn the iPod on. The music will play, and the infected will follow it.”

  A slow smile bent Steve’s features into a grin. He clapped his hand against his metal replacement.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said. “Let’s give it a try. We can even turn the music off and bring the car back to use again later.”

  Thud.

  Susan almost screamed. There was a light tapping on the window on the first floor. Pink hands pressed against the glass, smearing blood across its surface.

  “They’re getting closer,” Oaks said.

  “More will come and they’ll beat and pummel and pry at the windows and doors until they get in,” Steve said. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to do this.”

  They sent details of the plan back to Jericho, who was still hiding amongst the trees. He flashed a reply back. Oaks snorted.

  “What?” Susan said.

  “He says he doesn’t much like the idea of putting his life in the hands of a cheap Japanese toy,” Oaks said.

  “Best not to tell him it’s a cheap Chinese knockoff,” Steve said.

  They decided not to pry open the board covering the windows on the first floor in case the infected heard them and investigated what it was. Instead, they wrapped the RC in ropes and lowered it to the ground from a second floor window, the iPod and speakers poking up from the top like a crown. It touched down, the little car’s wheels spinning and kicking up dirt as it took off.

  It handled the rough bumpy ground with ease. The iPod wobbled to and fro on its roof. Its little electric engine made a whirring sound. Many of the nearby undead turned to face the sound, but their movements were slow. The RC was fast and easily outpaced them. Uncertain in the darkness, the infected chased the noise as far as they could before
giving up once it moved out of earshot.

  “All right,” Steve said. “That’s far enough.”

  Oaks was at the RC’s controls. He stopped the little car. Susan pressed the On button on the iPod remote. Nothing happened. She pressed it again.

  “Did you press it?” Oaks said.

  “Yeah,” Susan said. “It’s not working.”

  “Let me try,” Taylor said.

  She took the remote and pressed the On button, but again there was no reaction.

  “It’s not working,” Taylor said.

  “Bring the RC closer,” Steve said. “Maybe it’s out of range.”

  Oaks brought the car closer. Taylor hit the button again and again. Finally, the music started. Highway to Hell. The infected groaned and turned in the direction of the music, drawn to it like moths to a flame.

  The RC bolted forward, the infected giving chase. They stumbled after it. Oaks moved through the building to maintain visual contact with the remote control car. A growing number of undead approached it.

  “Turn up the volume,” Steve said.

  Taylor did, and the little RC stopped and turned, as if surveying its surroundings. The undead groaned and grunted as they approached the toy. An undead stumbled and fell, in line to crush the little car beneath him. The little car put on a spurt of speed and zipped underneath a truck.

  The infected dived for the car, growling, howling and scraping at the earth and car’s underside with their clawed hands.

  Behind them, Jericho stepped from the fringe of trees and ran toward the entrance, crossing the carpark with wide strides. He slowed down quickly. He was bulky with bags and cases on his shoulders. He banged into the cars as he maneuvered between them. An undead, hearing the noise, turned and growled at him.