by M. K. Dawn
“I’m asking for you to trust me. And if not me, Russo. He does have a gun…unlike you.”
“Fine.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But so help me God, Russo, if anything happens to her…”
“Jesus, Archer. I’ve got it under control.” Russo patted his side arm. “Ready when you are.”
“I’m going to head to the execs’ floor,” Archer said. “See if I can uncover some answers as well.”
“You don’t think Fletcher will tell me the truth?” Sloan asked.
Archer planted a quick peck on her cheek. “Not a hundred percent sure he knows what the truth is. Like you said, we can accomplish more if we split up. We’ll meet back up at ten. Compare notes. Be careful.”
Sloan smiled. “You too.”
***
“So.” Russo leaned back on his heels as the elevator climbed to the ninth floor—her floor—though this time she would venture to hall one which, like hall two, housed the VIPs. “You and Archer? It’s official? Beds pushed together and everything?”
Sloan never understood the need for idle chit-chat, especially when the conversation was steered in a personal direction. She tapped her foot and tried to ignore the questions but he continued to stare. “Why do you ask?”
“You two seem…cozy.”
She and Archer had yet to define their relationship. She didn’t feel like doing that with a stranger. “Where will you wait when I speak with Dr. Barnett?”
“Ouch. Subject change.”
“Captain—”
“Major,” he corrected.
“Major Russo, this is not the time or place for this discussion. Besides, I make it a rule not to share my personal life with those I don’t know.”
“You’re a private person. I get that. It’s cool”
“Yes.” She should’ve allowed Archer to come and dealt with Fletcher’s disdain. It would have been better than being bombarded with personal questions. “Now can we please get back to the task at hand?”
Russo led them off the elevator. “Which is his?”
“Midway down the hall. Room twenty.”
“I’ll wait here. Keep an eye out for things. Give me a shout if you need anything.”
Sloan waved him off and headed down the hall. Why was everyone so on edge about her safety? When they first believed the bodies were missing, she admitted she was scared, but now that Fletcher confirmed they were in a secure location, she didn't understand what the fuss was all about.
The hall was quiet, which wasn't unusual considering the time of day. Most people would be out, performing whatever job they had been brought here to do. What did surprise her was how many doors were left open. Most were cracked but others were wide enough she could see inside, as if the person had left in a rush. Was this a common occurrence for this hall? She'd never seen it done where she lived. Maybe they'd been together for so long that it was more of an open community.
Fletcher's door was also cracked open but she knocked anyway. When he didn't answer, Sloan poked her head in and called out, “Fletcher, it's Sloan. Can I come in?”
Still, he didn't answer. He had said he was sick. Sloan couldn't imagine him leaving his room while under the weather. He was typical of his gender: illness of any sort stopped him in his tracks—maybe even more so, since he was a doctor.
“Fletcher,” she called again, this time entering his room. It smelled of disinfectant and disease; not unlike a hospital. “Fletcher?”
Maybe he was asleep. That seemed like the most logical explanation when one had the flu. Still, it was important she spoke with him. To do that, she would have to enter his bedroom without consent—which was not something she wanted to do. She'd spent very little time here during their stint together, and when he did invite her over, she never felt comfortable. With a deep breath, she pushed the memories aside. This visit was not about her. She had questions that needed answers. The lives of everyone in The Bunker could be at stake.
The bedroom door was closed so she knocked. It was a fair warning in case there was another, more intimate reason he hadn't answered. When there was no response, she turned the knob and let herself in.
She found him sprawled on the bed under a mountain of blankets, his face pale and unmoving. “Fletcher?”
He stirred and groaned at the sound of his name. She'd never seen him so ill. This didn't appear to be any ordinary flu.
“It's Sloan. Are you all right?”
“Sloan?” His voice was barely audible.
She stepped closer. “How long have you been this way?” She'd just spoken to him not thirty minutes ago; he sounded sick but not this severe.
“I just need some rest.” His eyes fluttered and he forced them open. His irises were different. Darker. Larger. More defined.
Then she remembered Cale's black, soulless eyes after he had turned. All the white had been erased. “Have you been bitten?”
“What sort of question—” A bout of coughing cut him off.
Sloan rushed to his side and handed him the glass of water by the bed. “Has someone bitten you?” It was a ridiculous question—one she couldn't believe she needed to ask—but his skin, his eyes...they were so similar to Cale's. She needed to know.
Fletcher cleared his throat. “This is not the time.”
“I don't care about your sex life!” she snapped. “Unbutton your shirt.”
He did as she requested. On his chest were a multitude of bite marks—human bite marks.
“Who did this? Was it Tiffany?”
“She's sick as well.” He turned his head. “Where has she gone?”
Sloan’s pulse began to race. “Sick like you?” The night Cale attacked, her finger had been bandaged. She had mentioned that he'd bitten her when she removed the breathing tube.
“I caught this from her.”
Davis had said the mutation only happened when bitten by someone who had already changed. Could he have been wrong? “Do you know how long she’s been away?”
“Who?” His voice was raspy.
“Tiffany!”
“Hours…days.” He shook his head slightly. “I don’t—” His eyes glazed over and stilled. The remaining strength left his body as his head slumped to the side.
“Fletcher?” She clutched his arm and shook even though she knew it was too late. She’d been around death enough to know there was nothing she could do. Still, this wasn’t a patient. He was a friend—for lack of a better word—and she found it difficult to accept the fact that he would never wake again.
That was until she realized he might.
***
Sloan didn’t know how long she stood there, petrified by fear. Watching. Waiting. Not knowing if this man—a man she once believed she was in love with—would change into the monster that almost killed her a few days ago. How long did the transformation take? Were the organs—she swallowed hard as the first word that came to mind stuck in her throat—eaten before death or after? There were so many questions. So much they still didn’t know.
But the questions would have to wait. The body needed to be removed and isolated. Then a decision could be made as to what to do. Cremation? Autopsy? A stab through the heart?
She lifted her wrist to call Archer, but thought better of it. If he by chance was allowed to speak with the execs, he could be with them now. Hopefully, he would have better luck obtaining answers than she did. The only other person she could trust with this task was the soldier waiting in the hall. “Russo, Tony.” The connection crackled. “Can you hear me?”
The connection was filled with static. She could only make out a few words. “…Problem…hall…go.”
“Can you repeat, Russo? There seems to be an issue—” Gunfire cut her off. Sloan raced to the door. Russo was nowhere to be seen. In the distance, she heard a muffled sound. Not really voices but there was some kind of commotion happening. She glanced back towards the bedroom, unsure if she should leave Fletcher alone.
Another shot fired. Closer thi
s time. She rushed back to the bedroom. Fletcher was still immobilized on the bed but his color had grown paler than it had been earlier. More black lines had now formed in place of the veins. If she was going to leave him alone, she needed to find a way to secure him in case he woke. Locking the door might be enough but she couldn’t be sure.
Sloan glanced at his nightstand and grimaced. Chances were good he had something in there that might help. Something to tie him to the bedposts perhaps, but that would mean going through his things. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to learn any more of his secrets.
With a heavy sigh, she pulled the top drawer open. There was an assortment of items she didn’t want to think about. Most she had only heard of, but by the grace of God, there was also a set of handcuffs. Pink fuzzy handcuffs, but they appeared strong nonetheless.
Sloan seized his hand and raised it above his head to the bedpost. She forced herself to ignore his newly grown nails. Lengthy and sharp. Perfect for a predator.
She closed the handcuffs around his wrist just as another gunshot rang out. Sloan ran back to the hall, closing and locking doors behind her.
The corridor was still empty, but the commotion she heard earlier was nearby. There was also the sound of heavy boots smacking the smooth, rocky floor. “Russo!”
The jog grew into a sprint as Russo turned the corner. “Run!” Behind him, a horde of those things…those monsters followed. Without sight, they bumped off the walls and each other but it didn’t make much of a difference. They were quickly gaining ground. “Elevator. Now!”
Sloan snapped out of whatever trance she’d been under and ran. She looked back only once when she no longer heard Russo’s heavy boots hitting the ground. He had stopped outside Fletcher’s door, gun aimed at the monsters drawing closer. Another pop of the gun. Head shot, but the monster kept coming.
“Chest!” Sloan screamed. “Aim for the chest!”
He didn’t look back. At first, she wasn’t sure he had heard her, but then the next round went off. The bullet went straight through the sternum, dropping the thing to the ground.
Sloan reached the elevator and scanned her wrist. The door opened and she practically threw herself inside. She wanted nothing more than to watch them close, but she had to wait for Russo.
He was killing the front runners as fast as he could. She’d never seen a person change a clip so fast. But as each one fell, it was replaced by a dozen more. How many people had been changed? Half the floor? More? There was no way he had enough bullets on him to stop them all. “Russo, come on!”
Just as he took a step back to make a break for it, Fletcher’s door swung open. She tried to call out, to warn him as the man she used to know ambled out. The hand she’d handcuffed to the bed was mangled; black dripped from the fingertips, but he didn’t seem to care. With his nose in the air, he found his prey and lunged. Russo was knocked to the ground and the gun flew from across the hall. Sloan watched in horror as her mentor opened his mouth and sunk his serrated teeth into Russo’s neck. Blood spilled from the wound, pooling on the floor around his head. Others descended on him, ripping away clothing and biting at exposed skin.
Sloan half expected to see the monsters come up with flesh in their mouths as she’d seen on TV, but these things were not eating him. They were trying to infect him. Fortunately for Russo, the first bite to the neck had punctured his artery and he’d bled out before the others had reached him.
Her brain screamed for her to close the door, get out of there, warn the others, but she was paralyzed, watching the horror unfold.
Without warning, the emergency siren began to blare. The backup lights flickered and glowed a muted red.
The monsters stopped their assault on Russo’s lifeless body and turned their attention to the unfamiliar noise.
“Sloan?” Archer’s voice filtered through her wristband. “Where are you?”
A few of the things whipped their heads in her direction. They sniffed the air then charged.
Sloan smacked the close button and the doors whined as they slowly shut. The things were gaining ground. They were much faster than the door. She smashed her hand against the button over and over out of pure panic. Her heart thrashed, making it almost impossible to breathe. “Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up!” she screamed.
The door shut just as the first one reached her. The box rattled as the thing—or probably things at that point—slammed their bodies repeatedly against the metal. She sunk back in the farthest corner, not knowing what to do next. Her mind was shutting down. There were so many. All those people—
“Sloan!” Archer’s voice cut through her panic. “What’s happening?”
“I…I…” Her brain couldn’t form a single comprehensible thought.
“Where’s Russo?”
The last image of him replayed in her mind. His lifeless eyes. Thick, dark blood.
“Find Egan, Sloan,” Archer barked.
“Elevator one,” the mechanical voice said. “Floor nine.”
“Override elevator one. Level twelve, hall one,” Sloan heard.
The elevator jerked and descended. Above, she could still hear the monsters repeatedly assaulting the door. How long would it be until they broke free?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The fingers of Archer’s right hand quivered at his hip as he boarded the elevator bound for the execs’ floor. Not long after he’d been appointed head of security, he’d created a policy that no weapons were to be carried in The Bunker. Couldn’t have a bunch of people trapped underground with access to firearms. It would be impossible to tell who would crack under the pressure.
A perk of working directly under the execs was Russo and his men were allowed to break that policy. Now, descending into the unknown, he wished he’d been granted the same privilege. Maybe he was being paranoid—though he considered it justifiable considering what they’d learned the day before. The horror of a reality such as theirs tended to cling to your soul; Festered in the back of your mind, ready to spring forward like confetti and dust your entire body with fear.
Get a grip! he told himself. You’re a soldier. Trained to deal with the worst conditions imaginable. A monster is a monster. Whether that be an enemy intent on killing every last one of your men or an alien who now occupies a human host.
Alien. It was still damn hard to believe. He probably wouldn’t if he hadn’t been in the morgue when Sloan opened the body.
The elevator came to an abrupt halt, jolting his attention back to the present. The door eased open and he slipped into the hall. Archer expected a few people milling about. What he saw was more along the lines of pure pandemonium. Dozens of people bolted back and forth down the hall. Some were blanched—the civilians—eyes staring ahead but unseeing. Others—soldiers mostly—were unflustered and focused on whatever it was that caused such an uproar.
“Excuse me,” Archer seized the arm of a woman who passed, “what’s going on?”
She broke away from his grasp and scurried away towards the elevator. No explanation. She hadn’t even acknowledged he’d spoken. Trepidation crept into his mind. Still, he let her go. Chalked it up to a byproduct of working for the execs. They had a tendency to speak harshly to those they considered beneath them—which in most cases was everyone.
But then again…he spun around to summon her back but it was too late. The door had closed and she was gone.
For a second he considered stopping the elevator, though that would mean letting his paranoia take control. Unless it wasn’t paranoia; maybe it was a deep-rooted sense of intuition.
Just as he decided to bring the frantic woman back to this floor, Private Aguilar tapped him on the shoulder. “Colonel?”
Archer’s eyes darted from the elevator. “Private? What the hell’s going on here?”
“This?” The young man’s thin face tightened. “This is the result of the execs being damn spoiled babies. That’s what this is. Generals and shit can’t even take a little flu. Ordering people to lock down
the entire bunker. Don’t want it to spread. Operations laughed in their face. Told them they would send some people down with some chicken noodle soup and a sedative.”
Archer’s throat went dry. “The execs ordered a lockdown? And were denied?”
“That’s the way I heard it,” Aguilar said.
“The President gave the order?”
“Nah. Haven’t heard from him. Now he could order a lockdown. Justified or not.”
“I want to see the execs,” Archer said.
“I told ya, man. They’re sedated.”
His mind raced. It could just be a coincidence. “Why were they sedated?”
Aguilar frowned. “Like I told ya, they’re sick, man. Docs came down and examined them. They were having delusions and shit. Snapping their teeth like they were trying to take a bite out of a big chunk of meat.”
Archer didn’t need to hear any more. His first instinct was to bolt into the direction of the execs’ room and see for himself what the hell was going on. But first he needed to try and contain the situation as best he could. “No one leaves or enters this floor. Got me?”
“Yeah, man.” Aguilar jerked his chin upward. “You think it’s contagious? Should I get some surgical masks down?”
“No. Just gather everyone you can find. Anyone who appears sick, put them in one room. All the others in another.”
“Got it.”
Archer power-walked down the hall as not to draw attention to himself. The last thing he needed was a panic. He thought about calling operations, reiterating the execs’ orders to lock The Bunker down, but hesitated. He would require more concrete evidence as to why it needed to be done. He doubted the execs gave them more than the reason of because we said so. He knew that wouldn’t be enough, even coming from them. The one who had that power was the President and he was MIA.
Archer turned left at the end of the hall and scanned his wristband to access the execs’ living quarters. It was noiseless, which he took as a sign they were all unconscious. He had no clue which room belonged to whom, nor did he know who he should speak to first. His father came to mind, but after years of keeping secrets, could he trust any word the man had to say?
