Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation]

by Tayell, Frank

  “Twisted sense of humour, that bloke, with a soul to match. Since the outbreak, I’ve been handing the bottles out wherever I go. Why not?”

  The zombie slammed its fist into the door.

  “Yeah,” O.O. said, turning to face the zombie. “Yeah, I gave a bottle to Mel. She’d said she’d always wanted to go to France. Figured a bottle of revolutionary brandy was closer than nothing.”

  “And you came from the chapel,” Anna said. “What happened before that?”

  “When I saw you enter the Bunker, I decided that was my moment to take a break,” he said. “I went to the chapel. When I came outside, I saw that bloke there, heading towards me. I stuck the place into lockdown. Then came up here and saw you.”

  “They must have been deliberately infected by Lignatiev’s soldiers,” Anna said. “The people I thought were Special Forces. I hope they aren’t. Any ideas how we get out of here?”

  “You ask yourself that,” he said. “I’m getting a gun.”

  He walked back along the corridor to the door of the second of the private bedrooms. Before she thought to warn him about potential zombies, he’d entered. She turned back to the undead conscript on the other side of the transparent door. If this man had been deliberately infected, then she must assume Leo had been, too. Except Leo was immune, so perhaps he was still alive. Or was it more likely he’d been shot, or his suicide staged?

  O.O. returned, and dropped a long, leather hold-all on the ground.

  “You brought a bag down here?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “Didn’t you?” He unzipped it and took out a shotgun. “Not the done thing for a politician to be seen carrying one of these around the streets, even now. Hence the shoulder-holster.”

  “How many shells do you have?” she asked.

  He handed her the gun, then rummaged in the bag until he found the box of shells.

  “Any other guns in there?” she asked hopefully.

  “Nope, but I’ve got a boomerang,” he said, taking out a long stick, over half a metre in length, kinked two-thirds along with a thirty-degree bend. Though unpainted, it had been polished and stained into a patchwork of russet and honey. “Never could get it to return to me.”

  “That’s not a boomerang,” she said as she loaded the shotgun. “It’s a throwing stick. For hunting. They don’t come back.”

  “You’re kidding? The bloke who gave it to me promised it would. I spent hours chucking it around the garden.”

  “A gift from another of your constituents, right?”

  “Yeah, but a backhanded gift is still a gift. Here,” he added, holding it out.

  “No worries, I’m happy with the shotgun,” she said, loading a last shell. “Besides, didn’t you say you’d spent hours practicing? Open the door.”

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “We kill that zombie, head to the airlock, go outside, and to the airport. There’s people there I trust. Proper police and proper soldiers.”

  “Here’s hoping I live long enough to regret this,” he said. “On three. One. Two—”

  He slammed his palm into the door release. As it slowly slid open, the zombie slipped a hand through the door, clawing and grasping, but Anna had raised the shotgun, and even before the door had fully opened, fired.

  The slug tore through the zombie-conscript’s skull, spraying bone and brain across the opposite wall.

  “Poor bloke,” O.O. muttered, as the zombie collapsed.

  Anna lowered the shotgun, and her gaze, picking a path with care over the fallen zombie.

  “There!” O.O. called. “Another one!”

  “I heard it,” Anna said. “So not so loud.”

  “There’s not much point keeping our voices down now,” O.O. said.

  Anna raised the shotgun again, and kept walking, slowly heading towards the conscript lurching towards them. Definitely a conscript, going by her neon-pink hair, but not one Anna remembered seeing in the Bunker earlier. She stopped level with the kitchen, waiting for the zombie to stagger closer before raising the shotgun to her shoulder and firing.

  “Strewth, sounds louder than a cannon,” O.O. said.

  “How many conscripts were down here?” Anna asked.

  “Four, I think,” he said.

  The sliding door at the end of the corridor was open. Through the communication centre’s transparent walls she saw a third conscript, standing with his back to her, but bent over a console. There was no sign of Leo, and when the conscript swung around, she saw no sign of life in his eyes. The zombie lurched towards the transparent walls, but the door further along was closed. So were the blast doors leading to the airlock. The door leading to the staff-area along the corridor ahead was open, and through it, an undead conscript lurched.

  Anna raised the shotgun, waiting for the zombie to get nearer: a man with nearly a week of stubble, and two days of sweat staining his t-shirt. Another stranger. How many more were down here? To her left, the infected creature inside the command centre had reached the doors. One fist, then the next, languidly slapped against the reinforced material. Anna ignored the trapped monster, focusing on the inhuman beast ahead as it staggered closer. Behind it, the first door along the corridor swung open. Leo Smilovitz stepped outside, a U-shaped contraption of cylinders and wires in his hands.

  “Leo, down!” Anna said, even as a small dart flew from the U-shaped device. The zombie’s head exploded in a red-brown spray of bone-shrapnel.

  “Bonzer,” O.O. said. “Is that the weapon you said you’d make for us?”

  “That was just a fifteen-centimetre bolt propelled by compressed gas,” Smilovitz said, reaching into his pocket and extracting another bolt. “He was the third I’ve shot, meaning there’s one more in the complex.”

  “I’ve shot two undead conscripts, and the Prime Minister,” Anna said. “So he makes five, and I thought there were only four conscripts down here. What happened?”

  “I was going to ask you that,” Smilovitz said. “I was following a lead. Literally. Data is coming in, but I couldn’t transmit. Since the problem isn’t in the command centre, I followed the cables to the conduit beyond the data centre. When the emergency lights kicked in, I hacked into the cameras. From what I saw—”

  “Watch out!” O.O. said, raising his arm and flinging the throwing stick down the corridor, and at the zombie which had lurched out of the room opposite that which Leo had been hiding.

  With a sickening crack, the heavy stick slammed into the zombie-conscript’s head. It collapsed. But it wasn’t dead. Its legs kicked. Its arms thrashed, even as a sticky dark fluid pulsed from its cracked skull.

  “Mine,” O.O. said, walking over to the twitching zombie. “Spent hours throwing that damned thing. Hours!” He picked up the throwing stick, raised it, and smashed it down on the twitching zombie’s skull. “Yeah, not bad. I can see the appeal.”

  “Leo, how many people did you have working down here?” Anna asked.

  “Four,” he said.

  “Because that makes six zombie-conscripts. We have to assume there are more in here. Leo, we need to get outside, but the blast doors are shut. Can you open them?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Facilities like this aren’t a prison, they’re built with the assumption that everyone on the other side of the door is dead. There will be a mechanical override built into the frame, but to access it, I’ll need my tools.”

  They turned to look at the command centre and the zombie on the other side, its palms slapping, muffled, against the transparent glass.

  “They’re in there?” O.O. said, raising the throwing stick. “Then open the door. I’m stepping up to the crease.”

  “No, you’re not,” Anna said. “You watch the corridor. Leo, that gun you made, how liable is it to blow up?”

  “On a scale of one to ten, I’d say a four.”

  “Then open the door, and I’ll shoot. On three.”

  When the door opened, the shotgun roared, and the zombie colla
psed.

  As Leo gathered his tools, Anna walked over to the consoles where she’d last seen four of the conscripts. On the ground were three single-use syringes, and one corpse. Before she’d died, the woman’s arms had been pinned to the underside of the desk. Long knives, one per arm, had been inserted between the radius and ulna. Each wound was wrapped with tape, perhaps to stem the bleeding, or perhaps to keep the blades in place. Seated, the victim would have had to keep her neck bent forward, her arms at full extension so as not to further tear the wound. Assuming she wanted to delay death, of course. A strip of tape hung from the remains of the woman’s mouth. Otherwise, there were few clues as to what had happened to the poor woman as the other three zombies had torn her apart.

  “She was crucified,” O.O. said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “She was bait,” Anna said. “She can’t have been immune, because they had to have done this before the other three were infected. Maybe this was to bring compliance.”

  “It was for pleasure,” O.O. said. “A gun to the head and the lie that the injection was a sedative would have got them all to stand still for the needle. This is just sadism. I’ve seen some sick things in my life. Met some bad people. Done business with a few, but this is something else.”

  “It reminds me of a crime scene Commissioner Qwong described,” Anna said. “Except there, the killer took hours.”

  “Didn’t have time here,” O.O. said. “Just left her pinned, with the choice of tearing the wounds to bring a quicker death than the zombies would offer. Strewth, I thought the mushroom clouds would be the worst of it.”

  “We should back away, and not touch anything,” Anna said, pulling the older man’s arm. “This is a crime scene. Tess will need to investigate.”

  “We’re down to one cop in the entire country,” O.O. said. “There won’t be an investigation.”

  “Yes there will,” Anna said. “We’ll bring back more coppers from the outback. Ah, Vaughn sent Tess to hand-issue warrants on the east coast. I bet she wanted her out of Canberra.”

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Smilovitz called out. He stood next to a now-removed panel on the metal pillar close to the door. He’d pulled out a trio of wires, and plugged them into his tablet, which he now watched.

  “Tell us the bad, mate,” O.O. said. “Is it aliens or demons, because the way this day is going, I reckon it’s one or the other.”

  “It’s soldiers,” he said, pointing at his tablet.

  Anna stepped close so she could see. On the screen was a green and white view of the lobby, taken by a camera in the corner next to the blast doors and opposite the stairwell and elevator.

  “Is that night vision?” O.O. asked.

  “Low-light, yes,” Smilovitz said. “They’ve killed the lights. Sorry, bad choice of words.”

  The image was far from crisp, but Anna could make out four figures, all with submachine guns. Two were aiming their weapons towards the blast doors. The other two were aiming at the stairs. “Cut the power, kill the elevator, was that their plan?” she asked.

  “Part of it, maybe,” Smilovitz said.

  “And they’re on the other side of the blast doors?” Anna asked, peering at the picture. “They must be Ian’s people, but I don’t think… no, I don’t think any are Major Kelly.”

  “The sheila with the face like a road accident, and voice to match?” O.O. said.

  “She escorted me down here,” Anna said. “I think she commands Ian’s soldiers. Leo, how long will it take them to get in?”

  “Ten minutes,” Smilovitz said. “But, right now, they’re not trying. I can buy us a bit more time. Maybe two hours. But not much longer.”

  “Where’s the back door?” O.O. asked.

  “What back door?” Smilovitz asked.

  “The escape hatch,” O.O. said. “Don’t places like this have them?”

  “Not in real life, no,” Smilovitz said. “This isn’t a bunker to keep hundreds alive for a few years. It’s not a redoubt in case Canberra is invaded. It’s a refuge in case of a biological attack on Parliament. It’s got food and water, and enough air to keep a hundred alive for a few weeks. With just the three of us, the air will last a lot longer. But the food is mostly gone. Water, I don’t know.”

  “I know all that,” O.O. said. “But I thought there’d be a hatch for the cables or something. This place was a waste of money when it was commissioned. Putting in the bunks and a handful of offices just so the press could report the PM had been taken down to the Bunker. When a politician looks for a rock to hide under, it’s time to call an election, that’s what I say.”

  “That’s what they were doing,” Smilovitz said. “With all of this, dismantling the communications equipment, they were deliberately cutting the Bunker off from the rest of the world.”

  “It wasn’t hard,” O.O. said. “There isn’t much of the world left.”

  “Yes, but they could have simply severed the cables entering the Bunker,” Smilovitz said. “The wires enter through a conduit just outside. Instead, they left enough incoming data to keep a technician busy while they implemented the rest of their plot.”

  “By which you mean gathering the unwanted politicians here,” O.O. said. “And infecting enough to ensure the rest would get murdered by zombies. Afterwards, those four outside would enter, with cameras to record them stumbling across the undead PM, and us.”

  “Why?” Anna asked. “If it’s a coup, why not just kill us?”

  “For legitimacy,” O.O. said. “To show the politicians we sent to Hobart that Bronwyn really is dead.”

  “Fine, we can theorise the rest of it later,” Anna asked. “Leo, there really is no other way out of here?”

  “If this man here doesn’t know of one, I’d be surprised to discover it,” Smilovitz said. “But I control the cameras. They can’t see inside. Are there more guns down here? What about those two in your holster?”

  “They don’t work,” O.O. said. “Guess who gave them to me. Could you fix them?”

  “Maybe,” Smilovitz said. “The armoury is empty. I saw that earlier. Is there no other cache of guns?”

  “Nope,” O.O. said. “We distributed the firearms to the conscripts. I doubt Bronwyn packed a gun. And doubt even more that Lignatiev or Vaughn left some lying around. How quickly can that door slide upward? I’m not dying without a fight, so let’s get it over with.”

  “Can you control the internal locks?” Anna asked. “Could we lure them in here, and seal them in somewhere? Or some of them. If we can get upstairs, we can get outside. Only one of us needs to get to the airport.”

  “Give me a minute,” Smilovitz said, and began tapping at the screen, changing images, occasionally glancing at the ceiling.

  “Why, though?” O.O. asked. “Why would Ian or Erin do this?”

  “Power,” Anna said.

  “But they could have had it,” O.O. said. “Bronwyn was playing a harp missing half the strings. If we’d had a vote, Ian would have got the job. I would have voted for him. Tell me you wouldn’t. So why do all this?”

  “Earlier, outside, when you gave me that gun, did you tell anyone where I’d gone?”

  “No. Where did you go?” O.O. asked.

  “To find Dr Avalon,” Anna said.

  “Where is she?” Smilovitz asked, looking away from the screen.

  “I sent her to the airport,” Anna said. “But, Oswald, if you didn’t tell them where I was going, how did they know? By then, Mel was already dead.”

  “Mel’s dead?” Smilovitz asked, again looking up.

  “Sorry. Yes. And so are your other three assistants. They were infected. Mel was hanged, staged to look like a suicide, but it must have happened hours before I went there. I don’t know if Dr Avalon was a target, or if you were, Leo. One of the students was a witness, which, I suppose, is why they were murdered. But were you and Dr Avalon targets, too?”

  “Why would we be?” Smilovitz asked. “Ah, hold that thought.
We’ve got movement.”

  “Are they coming in?” O.O. asked, as he and Anna huddled around the screen.

  Two of the soldiers had dashed towards the stairs in the corner opposite the camera.

  Before Anna could frame a question, the screen went white. “What just happened?” she asked, even as the door shook, and a loud, though muffled, bang seeped through the thick barrier-door.

  “Flash-bang, I think,” Smilovitz said.

  The image cleared, belatedly showing two people, rifles raised, having descended the stairs. Not just raised, but firing. The two soldiers closest to the stairs were motionless. Even as the other two simultaneously scrabbled for their helmets to raise the night-vision goggles from their flash-blinded eyes, they collapsed. The two loyal soldiers, two women, lowered their guns. One turned back to face the stairs, while the other looked up at the camera. It wasn’t a soldier. It was Tess Qwong.

  Chapter 26 - Coup Interrupted

  Parliament House

  “It’s a coup, Tess,” Anna said as the door finally, slowly, opened.

  “But not organised by him?” Tess asked, keeping her gun raised, the barrel a polite few degrees from pointing at Oswald Owen’s head.

  “Me?” O.O. said. “You think I’m behind this, too? So much suspicion is enough to give a bloke a complex. It was Ian Lignatiev.”

  “And Erin Vaughn,” Anna added.

  “Explains the soldiers,” Tess said. “Are there any more inside?”

  “No,” Anna said. “I don’t think so. There might be more zombies. There might be more people hiding. But probably not.”

  Tess lowered her weapon. “Dr Avalon came to the airport, reporting trouble, and told us not to trust Mr Owen.”

  “He’s as innocent as me,” Anna said. “At least of this. Is Parliament House safe?”

  “No,” Tess said. “We’ve secured the stairwell and the entrance, during which we encountered seven of those soldiers, including the four here.”

  “They’re mercenaries,” the woman who accompanied Tess said. Older, and nearing the age where she might even be called old, she held her assault rifle with the confidence of experience, while her face had echoes of familiarity.