by Damon Hunter
“Can they get in?” Donna asked.
“Not likely,” Vance said.
“Not likely?”
“The walls are solid, and so are the doors and windows, but every time we think we have the rotters figured out, they do something to surprise us,” Vance told his ex-wife. “The bigger problem will be getting out.”
“No need to do that until we have somewhere to go,” Donna said.
“Yeah,” Vance replied before he looked at Major Cook. “You want to give it a go?”
“I might as well,” he said, standing up and going over to take Vance’s place at the desk.
Cook had not been there long before he said, “Is your contact Barrington?”
“Yeah. He respond to my message?”
“Looks that way. Impressive—you go higher up the chain than me.”
“We knew each other from before,” Vance said as he replaced Cook at the desk.
Vance had given a quick explanation of his situation and asked if Barrington could get them out of quarantine. He was disappointed but not surprised at Barrington’s reply.
“Not yet. Stay safe. I will work on it.”
“Good news?” Ashley asked.
“I guess it depends on how you look at it.”
“Is that so,” Donna said.
“Sure. The good news is we don’t have to figure out how to get out of here.”
“So the bad news is no one is coming to get us?” Ashley asked.
“Pretty much.”
Cook took his place and sent some messages. Like with Vance and Barrington, they did not answer right away. With the messages sent, there was nothing to do but wait.
“I suppose we should sleep in shifts and keep an eye on the monitors,” Vance said.
“I’ll go first,” Cook told them. “I spent most of my day in an armored transport. Compared to the shit you guys went through, it was downright relaxing.”
“I spent most of my day the same way,” Ashley said. “I’ll take the second and let Vance here get a solid run of shut-eye.”
“Most of my day was kicking back on a boat. Holiday drove the whole way.”
“So you’re not tired?” Ashley said as she made her way back to the bedroom.
“No,” Vance said, “I’m exhausted.”
Vance had risen to go find a spot on the floor in the spare bedroom when Donna said, “You two are more than just coworkers.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The way you look at each other. I know that look from you. You used to look that way at me.”
“She’s married. She has a family.”
“What does that have to do with you and her?”
“I don’t have to bed every good-looking woman I’m around,” Vance told her. He left the main room before she could say anything more.
Donna adjusted the recliner she was in so she was practically lying down and got comfortable.
“I can turn out the lights for you,” Major Cook said.
“I’m tired enough it doesn’t matter.”
He got up and turned them off anyway. The only light in the room was the soft glow of the monitors.
“What do you care who he is sleeping with?” Cook said as he sat down by the computer.
“I suppose I don’t. I don’t know why I said anything. Maybe I was jealous. My dating life has been nonexistent, and I don’t see how it’s going to get better anytime soon.”
“Fair enough,” Cook told her. “I doubt I’d call what they are doing dating. They like each other for sure, but whatever they are doing, keep in mind they were trapped together in the QZ thinking death might be just around the corner. Things happen. You know what happens in the QZ stays in the QZ.”
“That almost sounds like an invitation.”
“I suppose it could be, but I need to watch these monitors.”
“If I wasn’t so tired and this place wasn’t so crowded, I might consider it.”
“So you’re saying I should try again later?” Cook asked.
All he got in return was a snore as Donna went to sleep.
Chapter 9
TMRT Eastern Command Center - Escondido, CA
Compared to what was happening inside the Quarantine Zone, the day Barrington met Eric Vance might have seemed relatively mild, but to Barrington it was apocalyptic.
He and his team of physicians had taken a wrong turn and ended up where they shouldn’t be. Their small convoy had taken some small-arms fire and in the confusion went deeper behind enemy lines. Instead of rushing into the safe zone, they had sped toward the enemy.
It was not long before every vehicle had been incapacitated, and Barrington was sure he was about to be the star of some terrorist beheading video. Vance and his team made sure it didn’t happen, swooping in, guns blazing, to pull the doctors out of trouble.
It was not an exaggeration to say that without Eric Vance, Major Dr. Barrington would be underground somewhere instead of sitting in his makeshift quarters sipping Scotch. After the rescue, he made it a point to thank the commander of the rescue team personally.
He liked Vance. Even if the man had not saved Barrington’s life, he would have admired the stoic warrior, who just shrugged when Barrington thanked him, saying “Just doing my job. I’m glad I was able to do it well enough for us to be having this conversation.”
Barrington was glad to see the dedicated and übercapable soldier had joined the ranks of the TMRT. They needed men like Vance.
That alone should have been enough to get the man a helicopter ride out of the QZ, but Thompson was having none of it. Barrington felt horrible that he could not return the favor and pull Vance out of trouble.
He had already blown his appeal to Thompson. He needed to think of another way.
He was sipping Scotch and trying to formulate a plan when Thompson entered his quarters without bothering to knock.
“Drinking on the job?” Thompson asked as he pointed to the glass in Barrington’s hand.
“What job?”
“You are aiding the transition.”
Barrington took a sip. “My shift is over. Would you like a drink? It’s a decent single malt.”
“My shift is not over.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Have you been in contact with Vance?” Thompson asked.
“What makes you ask that?”
“I have recently learned you and he have a history.”
Barrington briefly considered telling him yes, but there was a reason they had done their communicating on the dark web.
“I haven’t talked to him,” Barrington told him. If their conversation was not as private as he believed, he knew he had just put himself in a lot of hot water. “Have you?”
“No. I suspect after his encounter with Dr. Talbot he does not trust us much.”
“You convince Talbot to come in?”
“He doesn’t want to come in without Vance. Which is why I was hoping he had reached out to you.”
“You want to bring him in?”
“Something like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need Dr. Talbot and his research. If helping him get his way gets him out of the QZ, then we should be helping him.”
“You want me to sell out Vance?”
“Sell out is a strong way to put it.”
“We could bring him out of the QZ. Then Talbot would have no reason to stay.”
“You seemed to have missed the part of our earlier conversation when I made it clear we do not bring people out of the QZ.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You can help by letting me know as soon as he contacts you.”
“You mean if he contacts me.”
“No. I mean when. You and he have a history. Unless he is dead, he will reach out to you. You are his only real chance.”
Barrington did not like the sound of that. The part where it was true bothered him the most. “I’ll do what I can, but you may want
to look into better solutions than using me to trap a man like Vance.”
“Don’t worry, chances are I won’t need you.”
“Really?”
“His teenage daughter is with him. What are the chances she doesn’t use her phone to update her friends of her status in the QZ? We have tagged her in all our databases. If she still has a phone, we will get a line on her sooner or later.”
Barrington nodded. He hoped the girl lost her phone.
Thompson stood and Barrington hoped he was on his way out. He needed to get a message to Vance and warn him about using the phones.
“I want you to debrief some of my top aides. Since you are not busy with anything but the Scotch, I assume I can send them in now?”
Barrington did not see how he could say no and nodded his head. Thompson left but another man walked in less than a minute later. Barrington poured himself some more Scotch and started telling the man about the failed Oceanside evacuation.
Chapter 10
Chen’s Liquor and Bait - Oceanside, CA
The wood on the staircase leading up to the apartments was old. Years of sea air and neglect made them easy to take apart. Mr. Wilson and the two cops had half the staircase disassembled before Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Chen returned from locking up downstairs.
They had not told Mrs. Chen what they were planning to do with her staircase. Dinkins knew she wouldn’t approve but didn’t want to waste time arguing with her. It was very quiet right now, but instead of making him feel better, the longer they went without seeing any hungry victims of the rot, the more his sense of dread grew. He felt they were in the eye of the storm, and the rest of the storm they were going to have to face was going to be a vicious one.
“You’re going to have to pay for that,” Chen said to Simms as he stacked up the stair steps they had removed on the far end of the balcony.
Simms ignored her and went back to the stairway to tear out another step while Mr. Wilson brought a freshly removed board over to the growing pile.
Chen looked at Dinkins. “How are my tenants going to get to their apartments?”
On cue, something banged into the door to the unit next to Chen’s.
“Looks like one of them is already home,” he told her.
She folded her arms and gave him the death stare.
Dinkins pointed out the carnage surrounding them on the streets below. “If they aren’t home, they didn’t make it. Go inside and check on your kid.”
“He’s fine.”
“Remember what I said earlier about martial law? Nothing’s changed.”
Chen turned around and went back into her apartment.
“We probably saved her from a lawsuit,” Mr. Wilson said as he put another board on the pile. “This thing was about to go.”
Simms joined them, throwing another board on the pile. “How much more do you want to take out? There are only three steps left.”
Dinkins nodded. “Should be enough.”
They all turned to look at Chen’s tenant’s place. Something threw itself against the door again.
“If she treated her doors the same way she treated the staircase, it would have been out hours ago,” Simms said.
“If it has held this long, maybe we could just leave it,” Mr. Wilson said.
Dinkins pointed at the window. “At some point it may figure out it can break the glass.”
“You think it’s one of the monster types?” Wilson asked.
“A vampire rotter?” Simms said.
“Yeah, a vampire rotter.”
Simms shrugged. He did not figure one of the amblers would be launching itself at the door with that kind of force for that long. Unless they were coming after someone, they did not seem to have any focus at all. Looking at Wilson and seeing the fear in Wilson’s eyes, he decided not to tell him what he was really thinking. Instead he said, “I hope not.”
“I guess we find out,” Dinkins said. He pulled out his nightstick and the key he had gotten from Chen for the unit. He handed the key to Wilson. “You open the door and then get out of the way,” Dinkins told him.
Wilson picked up a part of the staircase railing they had taken, a fairly solid-looking piece of wood a couple of feet long with rusty nails jutting out of one end. He nodded and went to the door.
Dinkins looked at Simms, who had his pistol in one hand and his nightstick in the other. “Let’s save the bullets if we can. If the choice is one of us getting bit or you popping a few caps, then pop the fucking caps. Otherwise we kill it the old-school way with blunt instruments.”
Simms nodded and moved to one side of the door. Dinkins took the other while Wilson put the key in the lock.
“Are you sure we have to do this?” Wilson asked.
“Just open the door,” Dinkins told him.
Wilson unlocked the door and reached for the handle. Before he turned it, he looked to Dinkins, standing like a baseball player looking to hit one out of the park. Dinkins nodded to confirm he was ready. Wilson cast his eyes to Simms, who gave him the same nod.
Mr. Wilson turned the handle and pushed the door open as he moved away. Dinkins stepped forward, heading inside, ready to swing his nightstick, but nothing was there. He turned to his right and saw it. It had been an overweight old woman in a flower-print dress, but now it was, as they feared, one of the vampire rotters. It was moving fast, going on all fours. Dinkins expected it to charge him, but instead it veered away from the door.
The vampire rotter inside came through the window to the right of the door and plowed into Simms as he was moving to join Dinkins inside the apartment. The railing to Chen’s balcony was made of the same wood as the stairs. They both hit it and the wood gave way. Simms and the vampire rotter tumbled to the street below.
Dinkins went to look over the edge and had just peered over when he heard Wilson shout, “Look out!”
He spun as a second vampire rotter came loping out of the apartment. He swung his baton and clocked it in the temple, knocking it back inside. He stepped away from the ledge so he wouldn’t end up on the street with Simms as the vampire rotter came back at him.
He swung again, but this time it went low and drove him to the ground, pinning him underneath it.
Down on the street, Simms was certain he had broken something falling off the second-story balcony. The only good thing was when they bounced off the roof of an abandoned van parked in front of Chen’s store, the rotter had lost its grip on him.
He rolled over thinking he could be paralyzed, but while it hurt to move, he still could do it. Until he tried to get to his feet and saw his right foot was pointed the wrong direction. It looked better than his left thigh, which had the bloody, jagged end of his own bone jutting out the front. He could sit up, but that was about it.
He had lost his gun and nightstick in the fall, and the first thing he did was look for them. The nightstick was nowhere to be found, but he could see his gun by the front tire of the van. He looked to the street, hoping to see the vampire rotter had taken at least as much damage as he did.
He was disappointed to see the beast in the flower-print dress rise to its feet. It was disoriented from the fall, but once it saw Simms, it regained its focus. Simms figured he was done, but when it stepped toward him, it fell down.
Simms was not the only one with damaged legs. It was in better shape than he was, though, with one working leg where he had none. It began to limp his way, letting out a low growling sound as it came.
All Simms could do was scoot along on his butt, which he did as fast as he could toward his gun.
Up on the balcony, Dinkins brought up his nightstick and it took the bite instead of his face as two sets of sharp yellow teeth came at him. This vampire rotter was probably the old lady’s husband, as skinny as she was fat and frail-looking. The muscles in its wrinkled, skinny arms had been boosted by the rot. It held Dinkins down and pulled his weapon away with his teeth.
After it spit out the nightstick, Dinkins put his hand on its
throat in an attempt to keep it at bay, but the vampire rotter twisted his arm and opened its extended jaw for another attempt at putting its teeth into Dinkins’s flesh.
The nails on Mr. Wilson’s club piercing its skull stopped the attack. It turned to face him as Wilson pulled the club free.
The nails had stuck, so Wilson had to give it a good yank to get his weapon out of the rotter’s head. When the club came loose, Wilson almost fell on his back. By the time he had himself balanced, the vampire rotter was springing forward toward the defenseless Wilson.
It did not reach him as Dinkins got a fistful of its shirt as it leaped. While Dinkins held on, keeping Wilson out of range of the rotter’s teeth and claws, Wilson swung the makeshift club again, coming down like before on top of the rotter’s head.
This time when the nails stuck, the rotter swung its head and pulled the railing piece from Wilson’s grip. With the board still stuck in the top of its skull, the rotter went for Wilson again, but Dinkins kept his grip and kept it from reaching him.
The rotter spun to Dinkins and showed him the two rows of teeth once more.
Wilson picked up one of the steps they had scrapped and broke it across the back of the rotter’s head when it turned to Dinkins. It turned back to Wilson, and Dinkins took advantage. The frail old man had become strong with the rot, but he did not gain any more weight. Wilson’s distraction gave Dinkins time to get his feet set so he could lift the rotter up over his head. He tossed the vampire rotter over the balcony. Its face bounced off the same van Simms and the old lady rotter had ricocheted off. The impact turned its head at an odd angle, and when it hit the ground, it did not move.
Wilson and Dinkins looked over the edge. The way the van was parked, they could not see Simms scooting himself toward the front tire and his pistol, but they could see the obese vampire rotter lurching on one good leg toward the front of the van. They heard a gunshot and saw the rotter stumble and fall. They were not surprised when it got back up.
