by Damon Hunter
Chapter 25
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
Vance paused at the door to the bedroom where a newly patched-up Katelin and her mother were. He drew his gun. The possibility he would have to go in and shoot his daughter and, depending on how things went, his ex-wife as well, was very real.
He opened the door slowly. Katelin still had her wrists duct-taped together, but Donna had taken the tape off her mouth. They both looked like they had been crying, but neither looked like they had caught a case of the rot. Vance was not sure having her mouth free to lay a bite into someone if she turned was a good idea, but he decided to risk it and did not say anything.
Donna looked at him. “The kid Lumpy is dead, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, as well as Ashley and Major Cook.”
“It was my fault,” Katelin said. “If I had stayed in my room, none of this would have happened.”
“Someone would have found his secret rooms, and someone would have run into the rotters he locked in there. It just happened to be you.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“Shit happens and people get hurt. Nothing you can do about it.”
“Is that your version of fatherly advice?”
“Pretty much.”
“To think with you being gone all the time, I actually used to think I was missing something.”
“Katelin…” Donna began.
“It’s all right,” Vance told his ex-wife. “I have it coming. The point is you did nothing wrong.”
“Ashley was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?” Katelin asked.
“She was married, but we spent a lot of time together. So, yeah, she was.”
“And you’re not mad at me for getting her killed?”
“Nope, and you should not be mad at you either.”
“I didn’t know her long, but I was starting to like her. Same with Lumpy. I probably would have liked the other guy too if I had gotten to know him.”
“Seems like the only person you don’t like is me,” Vance said.
“Ashley saw something in you. Maybe if I don’t become a rotter, I’ll come around.”
“Speaking of the rot,” Donna said, “how long until we know if she has it or not?”
“I have no idea. We have already passed the point when most people show symptoms.”
Katelin raised her bound arms. “How long did they have you all taped up before they decided you weren’t going to turn?”
“They didn’t tie me up. There really was no they, only Ashley and I. Holiday was not awake for most of it. I was fighting for my life, and by the time we got to safety, I had not turned. Ashley and I decided it was enough.”
“I guess I was asking when I could get this tape removed.”
“Try to sleep, and if you’re still you in morning, I think we consider you immune.”
“I don’t think I can sleep. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”
Vance nodded as he sat on the bed. “I thought the same thing myself at one time.”
“What did you do?”
“After a while I just got tired. Then it was easy.”
“That some more of that great fatherly advice I’ve been missing?”
“Yep,” Vance said as he closed his eyes. “If Donna can watch you awhile, I’ll give a demonstration.”
“I don’t see myself sleeping anytime soon,” Donna said. “Go ahead.”
Vance, who knew the value of getting rest when it was available, did not answer because he was already asleep.
He did not sleep long, though, as the roof began to shake.
Chapter 26
The TMRT Research Convoy - Fallbrook, CA
“Would it be possible to tell me what is going on?” Bo asked the nearest soldier.
To his surprise the man removed his helmet and sat down next to him.
“It’s classified,” the man told him.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me if we’re going to be leaving quarantine soon?”
“Depends on what you mean by we.”
One of the other soldiers looked their way. With the helmet on it, was hard to tell what he was thinking, but Bo did not think it was anything good.
“What?” the helmetless soldier said to the man staring at them behind his black face shield.
“Just watch your mouth, Clay,” a voice said through the face mask.
“What is it you don’t want to tell us?” Bo asked.
“What part of classified don’t you understand?” the man in the face mask said to him.
“He’s right. I shouldn’t tell you anything,” Clay said. “Honestly it could be worse for you and the kid if you knew.”
“Fine. Anything you can tell me?”
“Yeah. You get a chance if you and the kid get away.”
“You saying it’s safer out there than in here with you?”
The soldier stood and looked at him. “Not to sound like this asshole,” Clay said as he pointed to the soldier with the helmet, who was still staring at them, “but what part of ‘get away’ didn’t you understand?”
He put back on his helmet as a voice, no doubt from the driver, said, “We are going off road. Secure your weapons and find a seat, unless this is your turret rotation, then man your turret.”
Clay looked at Bo and said through his helmet, “That would be me. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Gavin said as the soldier climbed a ladder and disappeared from view.
The other soldier who had talked to them took the seat next to Bo and strapped himself in. As the road got bumpy, he turned to Bo and said, “He gave you good advice. I suggest if you get the chance, you take it.”
Chapter 27
Dr. Talbot’s Transport - Fallbrook, CA
“Why are we stopping?” Dr. Talbot asked.
“There is a steep drop-off ahead. These transports are built to cover a lot of terrain but can’t scale walls or mountainsides.”
Talbot looked up at the monitor. “Most of the infected are gathered at the bottom of the hill.”
Novak nodded.
“We have seen them behave this way around buildings with healthy people holed up inside. They are looking for a way to get to them when they do this,” Talbot said.
“Yeah, it does look the same. That would mean someone is inside the hill?”
“The ping we got puts the phone right where we are. Do you see anyone capable of using a phone?”
“No.”
“Could they be under us?”
Novak nodded again. “It’s certainly possible.”
“Can we find out if there is a door or something at the bottom of the hill?”
Novak nodded again and then spoke into his headset. “Let me get some eyes on the bottom of the hill. Put a surveillance round into one of those trees at the end of the clearing.”
One of the men in the turrets on top of the lead transport followed the order. A round with very low power fired a microcamera into an avocado tree facing the hill.
Soon they had infrared images of the hill. Dr. Talbot pointed at the screen. “Looks like a door to me.”
Novak looked at the screen carefully. With all the infected around it was difficult to tell, but he too could see the outline of a door as well as a pair of what could be windows on either side.
“Some kind of underground bunker I would guess,” Dr. Talbot said.
“If so, it may be difficult to get in.”
“Yes, but not impossible.”
“This seems like a recipe for the fire fight I was talking about. The one we should want to avoid.”
“Yes, and you fear the men will not be very enthusiastic.”
“To say the least.”
“I’ve been thinking about this. I may have a solution, one tailor-made for our current situation.”
“Which is?”
“I think you may be right about us having enough samples to begin my work.”
&nb
sp; “You’ve decided to let him go?”
“No. Considering what has happened between us, that would be unacceptable. I cannot risk Eric Vance or any of his little entourage getting out of the QZ.”
“Sounds like we are back to my fire fight problem.”
“We don’t need to dirty our hands with them. There are plenty around to do our work for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“The horde. We just need to open the door, and the horde will do our work for us.”
“Open a door?”
“We do have explosives, don’t we?”
“Yes. I see how it could work. They will be trapped in there.”
“That’s the idea.”
“I’m not comfortable feeding them to the infected.”
“Would you rather kill them yourself? These are your only two choices.”
Novak did not answer.
“No one else has seen this feed. Tell them to place a shape charge at the coordinates of the door. They do not need to know why. They will never know.”
“I’ll know.”
“You’ll get over it. Give the order.”
Novak was not sure he would get over it, but he gave the order anyway.
Chapter 28
The TMRT Research Convoy - Fallbrook, CA
Clay wanted to ask what they were blowing up as he went below to collect the shape charge, but he decided he would find out soon enough. He was back in the turret as the transport reached the edge of the hill and then turned so Clay could toss the lunch-box-sized explosive down to the coordinates he had been given. A readout in the corner of the face shield on his helmet told him where to throw the charges, and when they reached the point where he could throw them accurately, he did so. Once they were a safe distance away, someone inside the transport would trigger the explosive.
Clay was in the last turret of three covering the transport. Each had a bubble cover that allowed them to fire the guns without worrying about some rotter jumping up and taking out a gunner, or worse, getting inside. The helmets and body armor should stop a bite from even a vampire rotter, but no one wanted to test out how well they worked. These were battle-hardened veterans of many a conflict and knew just because someone says a piece of equipment will do something doesn’t mean it actually will.
To throw the charge, however, he had to lift the bubble. The other two gunners on his transport, along with the gunners on the other two, covered him. They would do what they had to, but they all knew gunfire brought the horde coming their way. The transports were built to withstand an infected swarm attack, but like the body armor, the less they put the vehicles to the test the better.
Clay was pulling the bubble closed when a vampire rotter leaped up on top and dove for him mouth-first. He slammed the bubble shut quickly, catching the rotter around the neck.
Having the bubble come down on it stunned it momentarily, and Clay slammed its head with the edge of the bubble two more times before shoving the rotter off the transport.
The transport was turning, moving away from the bomb he had dropped. It was pure luck, but Clay managed to time the shove so the vampire rotter was ground in half by the steel wheels of the transport.
The charge had just gone off when there was a second explosion. The transport hit something and went airborne for just second before slamming back to the ground.
They had no idea the area leading to Corrigan’s compound was rigged with various booby traps. Seeing a field of dismembered bodies was not really an odd thing in the Quarantine Zone. They never considered the mass of body parts covering the area was because the field was wired with explosives. All but one of them had been detonated by the horde, and they managed to run over the one all the ambling infected had missed.
They landed back on the wheels, but the ground below them was not flat. One side landed higher than another, and the transport tipped over. Clay had not secured the latch. He was thrown clear as the transport tipped over and fell on its side.
The body armor was tested quickly. As soon as he stood up, a vampire rotter jumped on his back and sank two rows of fangs into his shoulder, and an ambler grabbed his arm and laid a set of teeth on his elbow.
His suit was built with some of the same fixtures of the sick-slaying stick. A button on the palm of his free hand was pressed and four three-inch spikes grew on his knuckles. He punched a hole in the ambler’s head, and it let him go. He used his now free hand to draw his combat knife and stabbed the creature on his back in the top of his skull until it slid off him.
He looked around. It seemed half the horde was going toward whatever he had blown up, and the other half was going toward him and the fallen transport. He figured there was no reason to be quiet anymore; they had made enough noise that the horde was coming. Clay drew his machine gun and started mowing down the approaching infected.
Chapter 29
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
It did not take long for Ana to cry herself to sleep.
She spent the last fifteen minutes saying “I’m the only one left.” Bar wanted to tell her different, that he was still around, but he knew what she meant. She and five friends, calling themselves the South West Apocalypse Response Team, had made their way to the Quarantine Zone in hopes of filming themselves fighting the infected. Of the six who made the trip, she was the only one left alive.
It was a stupid thing to do, and they figured it out quick, but not quick enough.
Bar could relate. He had pretty much run out of friends himself. He lost his through stupidity too. Mostly his own. He was quite a bit older than Ana and should have known better. He knew people didn’t like to be around irresponsible old drunks. Hell, he was an irresponsible old drunk and he avoided them too.
Helping the kids and Donna escape the horde had been the best thing he had done in years. Fact was, until they showed up needing his help, he was content with his decision to sit in his crappy hotel room drinking bad beer until death or the rot came around to visit. Seeing Lumpy dead on the kitchen floor, he couldn’t help but think he screwed that up too. It should have been him on the floor. Unless they took back to the water, Bar was sure he was the most dispensable of their little band of survivors, yet he was one of the five still around.
They had not known each other long, and hardly a second of the time had not been spent battling for survival, but he felt connected to them. He did not trust the military types who recently joined them. He knew himself well enough to know there was some jealousy involved in Donna’s ex-husband becoming part of the group. It was irrational—he was too old, too fat, and too much of a loser for a fine woman like Donna—but it didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.
Like Ana, Bar was out of tears too, but he had gotten as much sleep as he could hope for. He carried her into the other room and set her on the sofa. He considered checking on Katelin, but the thought of seeing another kid, this one much younger, infected and/or dead did not appeal to him. Instead he went to see the hidden rooms for himself.
One of the many things he did not like about this Corrigan guy was apparently he either did not drink or had not planned well enough to always have some booze on hand. Bar had looked and not found a drop of alcohol in the entire kitchen. He knew it was unlikely, but he hoped there was a twelve-pack of Bud Light or something like that stashed in the secret section of the house.
He looked in the shrine to a kid he figured had never been there, and it made him uncomfortable. Like Katelin, he checked the door at the end of the hall and found it was locked.
The floor of the little armory was almost completely covered with the dead. Bar stepped around them and went into the room where Corrigan made the ill-fated decision to keep his infected friends locked away instead of killing them.
The sad fact was the infected were still people; even the vampire rotters were still partially human. They were sick, not evil. The idea that a cure might be coming was not far-fetched. Having had to kill a bunch of infected people in the la
st twenty-four hours, Bar could see how somebody might look to avoid it if they thought they could.
Bar stepped carefully around the bodies of two rotters and the attractive TMRT soldier who helped save their lives back at the harbor and made his way into the other room. Another victim of the rot lay dead on the floor, but this room was bigger and it was easy to step around him.
This room was a well-stocked workshop. Corrigan, apparently, was just as into tools as he was weapons. Like the weapons, his various wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers were hanging on the wall and arranged by category. He had several benches, all with some sort of vice grips mounted on top, and more than one had a setup to do some welding.
On the far side of the room was a motorcycle. Bar knew boats, not bikes, but he recognized it as a big American machine, most likely a Harley. There were no parts lying on any of the benches. Either Corrigan was done fixing it, or he had not started.
Bar noticed there was a key in the ignition. The key in the ignition did not interest him as much as the other keys on the ring. There were two of them, and both looked like they could be house keys. He wondered if one of them opened the locked door at the end of the hall.
He plucked them from the ignition and went back out. Since for all he knew there were more infected locked behind that door too, he snagged both Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistols off the wall and found the right magazines for each. In a box marked holsters, he found a nylon shoulder rig which let him carry both guns and two spare magazines for each under his arms. He felt pretty good with the two massive handguns, but he still grabbed a Mossberg twelve-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip and a box of shells.
He loaded the shotgun in the hall so he did not have to hang out with the dead bodies. He was ready to go try out the key when he felt the house shake. His first thought was an earthquake, but as he stood still and listened to the rumble, it seemed to him he could hear an engine or three above him.
Bar decided to worry about whatever was happening above them after he found out what was behind the door. He put the key back in the lock and pumped a shell into the chamber of the Mossberg. He tried to turn the key and nothing happened. He tried the other key, and this time the bolt slid free.
