There’s something down here that Josef Schoepke wanted to keep hidden away from the world, Wilder thought. Not even the government caught wind of whatever it was that Josef stowed away down here.
Walt reached the last door on the left and was about to open it.
“Stop!” Butsko yelled from a few feet away. “We have no idea what’s behind that door.”
The noise behind them was getting louder, and they knew they only had seconds before the zombies were in sight.
“We’ve got two options,” Wilder pointed out. “Wait for them,” he said as he nodded down the corridor, “or go inside and take our chances in there.”
Walt didn’t wait for an answer and barged into the room. There was nothing immediately waiting for them. After Butsko shut the door and secured it, they all walked deeper into the room. The motion detector lights buzzed on soon after.
“What the hell is this room?” Steele asked. The room was massive and had a deceptively high ceiling completely unlike anything in Sections A and B. The entryway lacked any kind of research equipment. This was most definitely not a storage room like most of the rooms in the other sections.
The room had a sterile look to it, had solid, seamless steel walls, large examination tables placed around it, and had clusters of three thin pipes hanging from the ceiling.
“Those would be for fires,” Butsko said as he saw Cheryl looking up at the ceiling. “The pipes with the red dots are water and the blue dots are chemicals to extinguish fires.”
“What’s the green dot for?” Fisher asked.
“I have no idea,” Butsko said.
“I know you hate secrets, Sir,” Wilder said to Butsko, “but we’re going to have a room full of pissed off zombies any minute now. We need to find that hatch.”
“I know, I know,” Butsko said as he looked all over the room. “But what they hell were they doing in here?”
As they walked deeper into the lab, the lights flickered on to illuminate the entire back part of the room. They all stopped at the sight in front of them.
A large, thick plastic covering hung from the ceiling. Behind it was the shadow of a large oddly shaped object.
“What the hell is that?” Walt asked.
“I don’t know,” said Wilder as he walked past the others, “but I found the hatch.” The hatch was a large round lid that protected the entrance to the facility on the level below them. It looked like something you’d find in a submarine, but was thicker and had a digital control panel next to it. Wilder bent down to twist the large wheel to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Damn thing is stuck,” Wilder said.
“Not stuck,” Butsko said as he fixed his eyes on the object behind the thick plastic veil. “Locked.”
“Then how—” Wilder started to say but stopped when Butsko handed him a piece of paper with some numbers on it.
From the entryway, they heard the door being broken from the hinges and the unmistakable sounds of the yellow-eyed creatures stampeding into the room.
“They’re in!” shouted Steele. “And it sounds like a shitload of them!”
“I have two more chlorine bombs,” Wilder said as he ran to the wall-mounted keypad and unlocked the hatch. “Let’s get down there, and I’ll hold those bastards back with them.”
“No,” Butsko said. “Get down there, all of you. Lock the hatch behind you. I know the code to unlock it and will join you shortly.”
One of the zombies ran around an examination table, and Steele slammed his heavy weapon into its chest. They all heard the creature’s ribs crack as it fell to the ground. Steele brought the hammer down on the zombie’s head and killed it.
“You need to get down there! Now!” Butsko barked.
“Not without you, Sir,” Wilder said.
Wilder walked over to the thick heavy plastic and pulled it down with both hands. The material fell to the floor with a whumf sound.
Even though they all knew the room was filling up with zombies, what was behind the plastic veil froze them in place as they looked at the object.
Laying on the ground of the lab was a large metallic object that was as wide as three city busses and as long as six luxury R.Vs. The object had a vague “V” shape, but the corner was more curved than angled. None of them could identify what it was. Walt thought it looked like some kind of satellite.
“Is that a new satellite design?” Walt asked.
“Shhh. Listen,” Butsko said as he stepped closer to the strange object. “It’s humming.”
Six zombies ran toward the group as they looked at the object.
“We’ve got company!” Wilder yelled to the others. Wilder swung the fire axe and removed the head of the lead zombie. He pivoted and swung the axe around and hit another zombie in center of its chest. The momentum buried the blade deep in the creature’s sternum.
Walt and Steele both jumped out of the way and swung their deadly weapons. They hit their targets and dropped two more of the creatures. Cheryl broke the arm of another attacker and smashed the crowbar into the side of its head. The weapon penetrated through flesh and bone as Cheryl forced it into the monster’s brain. With the crowbar lodged in the creature’s head, she kicked it against the wall, and Butsko threw his machete to her. She swung the machete down in a wide arc and the blade caught the creature in the jaw and buried itself into the zombie’s neck. The monster’s jaw dangled from the remaining muscle, and Cheryl grabbed the lower jaw and pulled it off the creature’s face.
Wilder took care of the remaining attacker as he buried the axe through its skull, cleanly cleaving the head into two parts.
“Come on, George,” Wilder said to Butsko. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Go!” Butsko barked at Wilder and the others. “I’m right behind you.”
Butsko was mesmerized by the strange object in front of him. The object had a dull, black metallic finish to it that didn’t reflect light. What was curious was that it looked like this object had been broken off of something else.
“They’re getting closer, Sir.” Wilder said through clenched teeth.
Butsko ignored Wilder’s warning and walked closer to the object.
“It’s humming,” Butsko said to no one in particular. “I can feel it.”
Wilder’s eyes grew wide as a horde of zombies ran into view. There were too many of them, and Wilder knew they were about to be overrun.
Wilder heard a loud clanking noise behind him and turned to see the hatch had opened and a man stood halfway out of the hatch with a machine gun.
“Get down!” the man with the gun shouted. He opened fire on the attacking zombies and sprayed bullets back and forth until the horde was gunned down. The yellow-eyed creatures lay on the ground, but they all knew they’d be back up in a matter of minutes.
“If you want to come down here,” the machine gun man said, “you’ve got two-seconds before I shut this hatch and lock it tight.”
Cheryl, Steele, Wilder, and Walt ran toward to the hatch.
“Goddammit, Sir!” Wilder yelled to Butsko. “Could you please get your shit together and get over here?” Wilder shouted.
Just as Butsko turned to Wilder, a short yellow-eyed creature ran from around the strange object and bit Butsko on the forearm.
“Fuck!” Butsko screamed as he shook off the young girl. The zombie ran back toward the strange object.
“No way he’s getting down here now,” the machine gun man said.
Butsko rolled up his sleeve and saw that the creature had barely broken the skin with her bite. Two small trails of blood leaked from the wound.
“She barely broke the skin,” Butsko said. He looked up to see the others as they looked at him. A tear rolled down Cheryl’s cheek.
“Go!” Butsko shouted to the others. “I can already feel the infection in my system.” Wilder looked away as Butsko dropped to his knees. Over by the strange object, Wilder saw the little girl who bit Butsko. His gazed rested on her, and he could’ve s
worn he’d seen her before. He looked back at Butsko and saw he had fallen all the way to the ground. When he looked back to the object, the little girl has disappeared.
Butsko was dead.
For now.
A dozen or so more zombies stormed the room and raced toward the hatch.
Cheryl tripped over one of the gunned down zombies and dropped the machete. Walt, who had one foot in the hatch, jumped out and raced toward her.
Walt laid Stevie down, grabbed Cheryl’s hand, and helped her up. The zombies were only twenty feet away and closing in fast.
Cheryl reached for the machete, but Walt screamed for her to get into the hatch. After Walt pushed her toward the hatch, he turned to get Stevie and found himself face to face with a yellow-eyed creature. The zombie didn’t hesitate, grabbed Walt around his head, and pushed its thumbs into Walt’s eye sockets.
Walt screamed in pain and tried to push himself away from the creature. Walt knew getting away from the creature wasn’t going to happen, so he grabbed the last remaining syringes of the antipsychotic drugs and blindly pushed the needles into his attacker’s head. Two of the syringes sunk into the yellow-eyed creature’s temple, while the other stuck in its forehead. Walt felt the zombie’s grasp on him loosen up a bit, but the creature didn’t let go. The zombie leaned in, bit Walt’s nose off, and spit it to the side as Walt’s eyeballs popped inside his head from the pressure of the zombie’s thumbs.
With one last action, Walt slapped his palm against the plungers and sent the drugs directly into the creature’s brain. The zombie shook as the antipsychotics affected the dopamine levels in its brain, but the drugs weren’t enough. With a few twists, the creature pulled Walt’s head from his body. Walt immediately dropped to the ground, and the creature held his head like a gory trophy.
Cheryl screamed when she looked at the yellow-eyed creature as it held Walt’s head. She ran and picked up Stevie and held it out in front of her as she spun her entire body around. As she twisted in a three-hundred-and-sixty degree arc, she slammed Stevie into the creature’s head and snapped its neck with the force of the blow. She stood over the monster and placed her foot on the creature’s head, freed Stevie, and then ran to the hatch.
She handed Stevie to the machine gun man and jumped down the hatch. The hatch closed with so much force that it removed the arm and fingers of a few zombies as they tried to stop it.
As she climbed down the hatch, Cheryl sat on the floor and cried.
15
Section C
Ten Minutes Earlier
Fi had found the room. As she wandered through the other labs and past other closed doors, she knew she had finally come to the right room. The warmth inside her guided her to the last door on the left, and as her hand reached out to open the lab, she could feel the heat radiating off of her and connecting with whatever was inside the room.
The Discovery.
The yellow-eyed creatures with her felt the same thing, but with Fi it was different. She was the first of this new breed. She was both the Adam and Eve who was being tested and guided to this place. Fi felt as though all the other thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of yellow-eyed creatures were connected to her somehow and were guided by her journey.
Whatever The Discovery was, it was guiding her, and she in turn guided the others.
As Fi walked through the huge laboratory, she knew her journey was over. She could see the thick plastic veil that concealed The Discovery, and when she walked around the veil, she felt the vibrations from the object fill her body. She felt like her body was communicating and sharing information of her journey with it.
Fi stared at the dark metallic object and placed her hand on it. Memories foreign to her filled her mind as the object shared its origin and its own journey to how it came to be in this place. Thousands of years of memories flashed behind her eyes in seconds as The Discovery revealed itself to her and revealed to Fi what her true purpose was.
Fi was a Queen in a battle yet to come. She was a warrior who would lead the charge against humanity with the guidance of The Discovery. The hundreds of thousands of yellow-eyed creatures were her soldiers who would follow and obey her to victory over the humans and other lowly infected.
The Discovery wanted Earth, and if its occupants wouldn’t obey, then they would be destroyed. The Discovery had thought that the first generation of infection would do the job, but had underestimated the tenacity and survival instincts of humanity.
It wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Fi kept her hand against The Discovery until she heard a group of humans enter the laboratory. She caressed the object as she ran her hand along it. When she removed her hand, the humming she felt throughout her body ceased, so she went to place her hand back on The Discovery. The humans were getting closer, and Fi gazed one last time at The Discovery before quietly hiding in the shadows. She knew the humans wouldn’t know what the object was. The Discovery was safe. Fi sent out a thought to the other yellow-eyed creatures to come down to this lab and protect her and The Discovery.
They obeyed.
The Discovery gave Fi one last instruction. It wanted her to infect one of the humans. It wanted her to recruit one of them for the upcoming war.
Fi hid as the humans approached The Discovery.
16
Inside the Sub-Level Facility, Schoepke Springs
Present Time
After Cheryl regained her composure, she saw Steele and Wilder talking with a few other men. She felt Stevie’s wooden handle but dared not look at her hand. Stevie was Walt’s weapon, his anchor. Stevie wasn’t just a deadly instrument, it was a symbol of what Walt had accomplished in his life. Walt had transformed himself and his life and had gone from living on the streets to being the director of one of the most respected drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities in the country. Anyone could look at Stevie and see how many years it had taken Walt to change his life. Those nails represented his struggle. Just as Walt had struggled to hammer each of those nails through the bat, he had struggled every day with his sobriety.
Stevie was all that was left of Walt and his legacy, and Cheryl would hang onto the nail-studded baseball bat until her last dying breath.
“Are you okay?” Wilder asked Cheryl as he walked over to her. He extended his hand and helped her off the floor.
“I’m sorry I broke down like that,” Cheryl said.
“Don’t be,” said Wilder, stone-faced.
“I’m sorry about Butsko,” Cheryl said as she lowered her head. “He was a good man.”
“Yeah, he was,” Wilder said. Wilder followed Cheryl’s gaze as she looked at the strangers. “If you thought shit was weird before, brace yourself,” Wilder said to Cheryl with no hint of humor in his voice.
Cheryl heard the zombies as they banged and thrashed against the hatch door, but the strangers didn’t seem worried at all.
“My name is Josef,” said the thin man with John Lennon-style glasses. The man was average height, but walked with an air of confidence that made him seem sixty-feet tall. The man had a receding hairline and thin lips that barely parted when he spoke.
Cheryl recognized the name.
“Wait,” Cheryl said as she suddenly remembered. “Josef Schoepke?” she asked.
“I see my name and reputation precede me,” Josef said as his thin lips curled to form a reptilian smile. “I seem to be at a disadvantage.”
“This is Cheryl,” Wilder said as he put his hand on Cheryl’s shoulder. “Over there is Steele, and I’m Wilder. How long have you been down here?”
“A long time,” said Josef, and offered no other details. “It seems the world has fallen into chaos.”
“Chaos?” Steele said as he took a step forward. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Millions of people are dead up there including my family.”
“I apologize,” Josef said insincerely. “I don’t mean to come off cold. It’s been a while since my friends and I have had contact with other h
uman beings.”
Cheryl looked around the large room and saw a wall of monitors. Each monitor displayed a particular part of the property. Cheryl saw all the cameras both inside and outside that facility, and now she knew where they led.
“How long have you been watching us?” Cheryl asked.
“Since the moment you arrived at the front gates,” Josef answered as he pointed to the monitor that showed the front gate.
“You’ve been tracking our every move?” Cheryl said as her temper rose. “Why didn’t you help us you son of a bitch?”
“We couldn’t risk exposure,” Josef said. “This might just be the safest place left on Earth,” he added as he swung his arms around the room.
“That was a good idea you had with the EMP bomb,” one of the people from the monitors said as he looked over. “My name’s Howard—Howard Palmnitz. I am… was one of the chief scientists in Section C.”
“What exactly goes on in Section C?” asked Wilder as he looked around.
Before Howard could answer, Josef responded.
“Things you couldn’t even begin to wrap your heads around,” Josef said.
“Try us,” Wilder said as his eyes narrowed, and his voice became ice cold. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things we’ve seen out there.”
“What the hell is that strange, black metallic object up there behind the plastic?” Steele asked.
The four scientists by the computer monitors looked at another man who hadn’t said anything yet.
“That, my friends,” said the strange man, “is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“Fuck me,” Steele said as he moved back towards the hatch. “I’d rather take my chances up there than listen to this cryptic bullshit.”
“Again,” said Josef, “I apologize. It has been a very long time since we’ve had visitors.”
“Who are you?” Wilder said as he directed his question to the strange man.
The man stood there in silence as he stared Wilder in the eyes. Neither man blinked nor turned away. Cheryl guessed the man before him was in his sixties, even though his muscular physique made him look about a decade younger. She also saw the scars that littered the man’s arms and neck and what looked like a tattoo that had been removed from the man’s forearm. This man had the confidence of someone with power. Not just physical power, but the power that came from holding a certain position.
Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation Page 30
