Wheels and Zombies (Book 3): Aground

by M. Van

  Whitfield gestured for us to sit, but I hesitated. As the general and Colonel Cornwell took a seat, Mars lingered behind them. He changed his expression to something more comforting, but his glance toward Ash made me feel nervous. I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me, but it raised the uncomfortable feeling already stirring inside me to a new level.

  “Please, take a seat,” Whitfield said, lifting a hand in invitation. Then he turned to Mars, who was still standing behind them. “Agent,” he added. Mars flinched, but quickly composed himself and joined the men at the table.

  Unsure what to do, and, in fact, unsure of the entire situation, I froze until Angie spoke.

  “We’ll stand if you don’t mind,” she said as a young man knocked on the glass door and entered without pause. The young man handed the general a stack of papers and left without a glance at us.

  “Let’s see,” Whitfield said as he rummaged through the papers. “Our final count is forty-two dead including five of Dr. Warren’s men and six are still missing.”

  His words felt like a stab through the heart. The look of disgust Cornwell directed at Whitfield before he turned his accusing face my way felt even more painful. At that point I wished I had taken the option to sit.

  “This isn’t fair,” Mars said appalled. “You cannot put this on her—” Before Mars could suck in a breath to continue, Cornwell interrupted him.

  “We aren’t here to lay blame,” he said, “but we can’t ignore the fact that the three of you pose a certain threat.”

  “A threat that you added to,” Angie chimed in, referring to herself.

  “True,” Whitfield said as he flipped through a few more pages. Then he released the pile and sat back in his chair. I tried to gauge the man, but he had the unreadable face of a poker player.

  He sucked in a breath, and it made me fear the words he was about to utter. “Colonel Cornwell here has suggested that we should ship the three of you off to Alaska on a prisoner transport where you would aid us in finding the means to fight Mortem,” Whitfield said in a casual tone as he lifted a hand to indicate the colonel. “Wasn't that how you had put it, Colonel?”

  A shock ran through me jolting my heart into overdrive. Had Angie been wrong about the general? Cornwell nodded with a satisfied look on his face. My good hand balled into a fist as Ash spoke up.

  “You can’t do that,” she said in a loud voice.

  Cornwell chimed in, pointing an accusing finger at us and said, “You are a danger to our society and—”

  “Who put us in this situation in the first place?” Angie said interrupting Cornwell.

  “Enough,” Whitfield said, lifting a hand in a gesture for everyone to shut up.

  “Fortunately for you, that is not the way we operate here,” Whitfield said.

  “But, sir,” Cornwell tried to interject, but Whitfield shot him a hard glare. The room fell silent for a moment, and we all stared at the general, who resumed sifting through his papers as if we weren’t even in the room. He stopped on a page and laid it open. The letters were upside-down and too small for me to read, but I recognized the logo on the top of the page. It was an orange V with, underneath it, black and bold letters—my father’s company logo. My muscles tensed as my eyes shifted from the logo to Whitfield.

  “We’ve been in contact with your father,” he said. “He is very eager to get you home, Ms. Vissers.”

  I released the breath I was holding and felt a shimmer of hope ignite inside me. Maybe home wasn’t that far away.

  “I have spoken with him in great detail concerning the current situation,” Whitfield continued. “He explained that your country has maintained a stable situation—meaning that they have managed to slow the spread of the outbreak and are now working on containment.”

  I felt my legs wobble as Whitfield continued to explain what my father had told him, how the first outbreak started at Schiphol airport and many people had died. He also explained how the Dutch had made use of the hundreds of miles of canals to help contain the spread, but I had no idea how that would work. Whitfield continued announcing the counted death toll as if he were reciting the numbers of a lottery ticket, but as he started naming places like Amsterdam and Haarlem, it started to hit me, names that sounded so foreign coming from the general’s mouth, but felt so dear to me. Although my hometown of Rotterdam wasn’t among the cities mentioned, it became difficult to keep myself upright.

  “I think I’ll take that seat after all,” I said as I pulled the chair back and sat down. Angie pulled another chair from the table on my left to make room for Ash and then found a seat of her own next to Ash.

  I glanced around the table, and except for the red-faced anger coming from Cornwell, and Whitfield, who was reading from his papers, all eyes were on me. Mars, Ash, and even Angie gave me sad looks, which seemed ridiculous because this was happening to all of us. Unable to hold their stares, I glanced down at the bandaged hand resting in my lap. Only my thumb and two fingers stuck out, and I wiggled them. It started to throb again, and having heard enough of the atrocities happening around the world, I just wished Whitfield would come to the point. He might have not wanted to lock us up, but I was sure there was an angle to his story.

  When he finished, Whitfield looked up to face me and folded his hand on top of his papers.

  “You see, Ms. Vissers, this outbreak is as much of a concern to you as it is to us,” he said. Whitfield paused, and I looked up from my hand to see whether I had missed a question, but as soon as our eyes met, he said, "I have explained your condition to your father.”

  I had to fight the tears threatening my eyes as Whitfield told me how relieved and grateful my father had been when he heard that Mortem had stopped my deterioration from cancer and that he couldn't wait to tell my mom.

  "Your father is not a fool," Whitfield said. "He knows the stakes and what your assistance might mean for the fight against the zombie threat."

  Before he could start to use my family to swindle me into doing something I probably didn't want to do, I spoke up.

  “What is it that you want?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. I knew the stakes and I didn’t need him to drag my family into this, at least not the one back home.

  “We need you to accompany Ms. Meadow to one of our medical facilities,” he said, sounding casual. “Ms. Meadow is our best chance to finding a solution to our problem, the key to unlock phase three.”

  I glanced sidewise to look at Angie. She shrugged. Nothing new there. We knew from what Matley had told us that another phase of testing would be necessary. They needed to reproduce the accelerated growth of cells along with something to induce hormone levels. Those two combined with the vaccine would prevent women and men from getting infected. Although I had no idea why they wanted me there—except maybe as a backup.

  “Why me?” I asked. Whitfield sat back in his seat with an audible sigh.

  “We’ve seen what happened to you inside the mountain after …” he said as he gestured at my hand. “We need to verify our solution is stable—it wouldn’t be wise to start inoculating folks if it meant they would eventually turn.”

  “Is this the medical facility in Alaska that Matley mentioned?” Angie asked.

  “It is,” Cornwell said.

  “What about Ash?” I asked.

  Cornwell glanced at Whitfield with a contented smirk on his face.

  “Ah, yes,” Cornwell said, “ever since the outbreak, a child of her age would have been placed in one of the refugee camps for children. Many kids have lost their parents, and they stay in these camps until proper caregivers can be found.”

  For all I knew, Cornwell had just hit me with a sledgehammer and it made me feel sick to my stomach.

  “Like hell you are,” Ash said, raising her voice. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  I glanced at Ash, and she looked at me expectantly as if she wanted me to speak up, but I couldn’t. My mouth wouldn’t form the words.

  “Th
is is bullshit,” Angie said. At Angie’s words, I glanced at Mars, and he caught my gaze. Those jade eyes bored into me as if they were trying to reach inside my head and tell me something.

  Ash had started throwing a colorful range of words as Whitfield cleared his throat.

  “That’s enough,” he said in a booming voice. Although the others remained silent, Ash didn’t seem impressed and kept venting her thoughts. I squeezed her shoulder and shook my head as she looked up at me. She clamped her mouth shut but couldn’t hide the hurt look in her eyes.

  Whitfield cleared his throat again and shot Cornwell a glance of disapproval before he turned to Ash.

  “Considering the situation and the fact that you have the same virus coursing through your veins as these two ladies, I believe that might not be such a good idea,” Whitfield said. “Besides, we are well aware of the fact that the child has created a bond with you, Ms. Vissers. Therefore, we have come up with a different solution.”

  “Ash will come with me,” Mars said. My head perked in his direction at the sound of his voice. It seemed as if I hadn’t heard his warm voice in ages, and now they spoke the words I wanted to hear. “For the time it takes you to do what you need to do in Alaska, Ash will stay with my parents and my son.”

  “Yes,” Whitfield said, “considering Agent Marsden’s intimate knowledge of the virus, I thought this would be best.”

  “I’ll arrange things with my parents,” Mars said. His lips curved into a faint smile that started to light up his eyes. Afraid his gaze would distract me too much, I turned to Whitfield.

  “What happens after we come back?” I asked, trying to keep my wits.

  Whitfield nodded and said, “If you want, we’ll do what we can to help you gain custody of the child.”

  The word custody sounded official, and for a moment I felt the anxiety of being responsible for a child, but it wasn’t anything different from what I had dealt with the past year or so.

  “What do you mean ‘help get custody’?” Ash said, sounding suspicious. Probably for the first time since I had met the man, Whitfield smiled.

  “I think you know what I mean,” he said. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ash's grin grow, which made me smile.

  “There is still a matter of international travel,” Cornwell stated.

  “So,” Ash piped in, sounding annoyed. It was pretty obvious she didn't like the, man and I would have to agree with her.

  Cornwell shot Ash an equally annoyed look before he said, “Europe is bound by a treaty that only accepts nationals to enter their territory.”

  “Then Ms. Vissers might have to stay in the United States a little longer,” Whitfield said elated.

  “Oh,” Ash replied, glancing up as if to check I would be okay with that. I nodded and smiled at her faintly. I doubt my family at home would appreciate it and knew it would be hard, but I could do that. Also, it would give me time to work on other things. A sliver of hope rose inside me. I glanced at Mars expectantly, and he met me with a smile.

  “We’ll leave you to talk it over,” Whitfield said as he rose from his seat.

  “What if we refuse?” I asked.

  Whitfield grasped for his papers before he straightened and faced me. Cornwell, standing next to him, crossed his arms over his chest and gazed at me with that permanent frown he carried around as if I had it coming now.

  Whitfield scratched his temple at the edge of his gray hair and said, “We might lose our best chance to defeat the zombie plague, and we’d have to send you home—alone. But if I should believe your father, and he sounded pretty convincing, then I know you’ll make the right decision.”

  With that he nodded and turned to leave the room. Cornwell looked disappointed as he followed him.

  | 32

  As the two men closed the door behind them, silence fell over us. Outside I could see Whitfield talking to Cornwell, and although I couldn’t hear them, the fact that Cornwell’s head was turning bright red told me he’d be the one getting it.

  Mars took up a seat at my right while Ash and Angie still sat at my left. No one spoke for the longest time, as if we needed a moment to digest the information given to us. Although it hadn't been a surprise, I still felt a combination of relief and anxiety: relief because it could have gone much worse. As Cornwell had implied, they could have just handcuffed us and dragged Angie and me to Alaska while shipping Ash to some kind of camp for orphans; anxiety because a trip to Alaska meant I would have to leave Ash behind.

  I glanced at the frail kid sitting in her wheelchair by my side. Her face looked as confused as I felt. Mars was the first to break the silence.

  “Are you guys okay?” he asked as he placed a hand on my arm. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find my voice and nodded. But as I looked up and saw the smile on Mars’s face, some of the tension fled from my body.

  “Sunbathing in California,” Angie said in an upbeat tone. We all turned to face her. Her mention of California, the place where Mars’s parents lived, and the look she gave me told me she had made up her mind. I guessed we all had. We had ever since we had taken those flash drives that Dr. Matley had handed us. We had managed to get them out of the mountain and out of the hands of Dr. David, and now we would take them to Alaska.

  Angie shook her head and said in exaggerated voice, “Yeah, that’s gonna be rough.” Ash raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s in California?” she asked.

  “That’s where you’ll be staying if Mags and Angie agree to go,” Mars said. “It’s nice. You’ll like it.”

  “Maybe you can finally learn how to swim,” I added.

  Ash gave me a hard look before she shifted her gaze between Angie and me.

  “You guys will come back for me, right?” she said in a soft voice that nearly broke my heart. Over the course of her short life, too many people had left her and had never come back.

  “That’s kind of the point to all this,” I said. My gaze shifted to Mars. “How long is this trip going to be anyway?”

  Mars pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “Depends on how Whitfield is going to let you travel,” he said, “but shouldn’t be more than two weeks at the most.”

  “Well, I’m not coming back,” Angie said. I shot her a suspicious glance. “I’m thinking of becoming Canadian,” she said. “Things are way too hairy for me here.”

  Ash’s fist shot out and hit Angie in her upper arm.

  “All right, all right, I’ll come back,” Angie replied, throwing an arm around Ash and pulling her in for a hug, “but only for you.”

  “What about Dr. David?” I asked Mars as Ash and Angie still goofed around.

  “It seems he has been summoned back to Washington, DC,” Mars said. "The president still resides in the White House, surrounded by an army to fend off the zombies, and he wanted a personal update after General Whitfield had informed him how Warren almost destroyed his base and the potential solution Matley had discovered.”

  "But I did that!” I said, a bit shocked. Mars shook his and squeezed my arm.

  "It would have never happened if Warren hadn't shown up,” he said. I couldn't detect any doubt in his voice, but still my chin dropped down to my chest.

  “Maybe we'll get lucky and a zombie bites him in the ass,” Mars said. He probably wanted to lighten the mood, but I couldn't laugh at his joke. Even though it seemed we had found an ally in General Whitfield, the thought of Dr. David still sent shivers down my spine.

  Mars placed a hand on my left cheek and traced the scar with his thumb as he lifted my chin.

  “You don't have to worry about him anymore,” he said. Before I could reply, Ash spoke up.

  “Finally," she said. I turned my head to face her, and she continued. "But like Mars said, I hope a zombie bites him in the ass." This time, I could laugh at the joke.

  “So now what?” I asked.

  “I’m kind of hungry,” Angie said with a shrug.

  “Can we have pizza for dinner?” Ash asked.


  “We should probably start with breakfast,” I said. A round of laughter filled the room.

  Mars got up from his seat and said, “I’ll see if I can find something for you to eat.” As soon as he had said the words, Ash and Angie applauded him. Mars responded with a bow, although instead of rising, he moved closer to me and then leaned in for a kiss. Shock quickly turned to heat flowing to my cheeks. His five o’clock brushed my skin as he moved his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Can I get you anything?”

  I had to clear my throat before I could answer. “Any … eh, thing will do,” I managed to say. He smiled that great smile of his and then turned to leave the room. My gaze followed him through the glass walls until he turned a corner.

  When my attention redirected to inside the room, two sets of eyes glared at me.

  Angie shook her head and said, “This is going to be two long weeks.”

  The tension had been broken, and although the world lay in turmoil, it seemed our little corner of it had found some relief. I had almost forgotten that it had been no more than a day ago that the virus we were trying to fight had also stopped Angie’s cancer, but the smile on her face said that she had not. With its lethal side effect for others, Mortem wasn’t the miracle cure one would wish for, but at least we were alive. Maybe things weren’t all bad, at least not for us.

  At my side, Ash nudged my shoulder. I turned to face her and frowned at the worried look in those big blue eyes.

  “What’s up?” I asked and noticed her slender fingers fiddle with the fabric of her flight suit.

  “That thing Whitfield mentioned …” she started to say, but hesitated, “the custody part …”

  I had a feeling where this would be going, but waited patiently for Ash to finish.

  “Would you do that?”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the nervous glances she gave me before I replied, “If you want me to.”