“You mean people,” Alex said, not able to make eye contact with the man.
“I mean forms of life that weren’t worth the air they breathed: terrorists, murderers, rapists. For over thirty years I helped design and study their departures, so to speak. I was good at my job. Too good. It wasn’t until I’d grown well beyond my youth that I began to understand that we were headed down a path that would lead to one outcome. And that, my newfound friends, is the path we now walk.”
“You said you had nothing to do with this,” Kristin observed from the far end of the table.
“I didn’t.” Tim shrugged. “I only knew of the bio-organic military division.”
“Bio-organic?” Matt echoed.
Tim looked right at him. “It’s a form of scientific discipline. Biochemistry and organic chemistry. To put it simply, they were the division that manufactured what you see almost every day now. They were the ones that, against the advice of my colleagues and I, infected prisoners of war, terrorists, and such at Facility Three.”
“New Mexico,” Cole said.
Tim nodded.
“So,” Anna said, “you helped engineer whatever the hell this is?” Her voice rose a little at the end.
“In a manner of speaking… yes, I helped create the A.D. virus.”
“You asshole. My husband is dead because of you!” She dropped her roll and pointed at him. “I should—”
“I’m afraid you are mistaken, my lady.” Tim slammed down the glass of water and stood, quickly silencing Anna. “I created a pathogen that would eliminate those who would see us all dead, be it for their god, women in their afterlife, or just because they plain old don’t like the way you look.”
“Calm down, Tim,” Jeff said, raising a hand. “You too, Mrs. Hamley. Let the good doctor finish what he has to say. You might just find yourself interested in this next part.”
“What exactly are you a doctor of?” Mary wondered aloud.
Tim turned to her as if she’d just asked the stupidest question in the world. “Microbiology.”
“So you’re a scientist and a doctor?” Cole asked, drumming his fingers on the table.
“Yes. But what I am not is the mass murderer Mrs. Hamley makes me out to be. I had no idea they would weaponize this virus.” He glared at Anna, who mimicked the gesture. “We told them after its creation that it was one of the things better left stored in a vault and sent into space and forgotten. Funny, actually—a few of those in my department, including myself, petitioned General Atkins to do just that.” Tim removed his glasses and intently rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They started killing the others. Doctors Callahan and Meade were found dead in their homes just under a month ago. The rest, I can only assume, died in the initial outbreak.”
“What makes you think the government killed your coworkers?” Mary asked.
“They threatened to go public. The A.D. virus was much more than what the Atkins thought it was; as we all know now, it’s a pandemic. My associates knew, as did I. But they were zealots themselves and only made things worse. Hence, they’re dead.
“A little over three weeks ago, I was taken from my family at gunpoint. I knew they’d come for me; my name was on the petition, after all. I was hauled away to some dark and damp room where no one talked to me for days. That is, until young Jeffrey here saved me.”
Jeff nodded. “I was under direct orders from Atkins himself to escort Dr. Grant to a transport helo.”
“By the time Jeff arrived, the virus had already done its damage.” Tim rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“My squad was sent in to where Tim was being held: a safe house in D.C. You’d figure they’d have sent some special task force or something, but at the time my unit was all that was left. Shit went to hell before any real measures could be taken.”
“Jesus,” Cole said. “You two experienced the fall of D.C.? The last bits of news came from there. Looked like a shit storm.”
“It was,” Jeff said, reaching for a roll. “My entire squad died on the way to Dr. Grant. Shit, I almost died several times myself. People were going mad, shooting everyone on sight. My C.O. was killed by some sniper on top of a burger joint. I barely made it to Dr. Grant.” He laughed at the thought and shook his head, breaking off a piece of the roll and eating it.
“But you did.” Tim sat back down. “I’m afraid you did.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Mary inquired.
“My family… my daughters and my wife, are dead. My brother and my sister and my nephew.” He gripped the bridge of his nose again. “All of them.”
“Well, we all have something in common, Tim.” Matt sympathized, thinking of his family. Of Shelley. “But I still don’t understand why Jeff risked life and limb to get you out of a prison.”
“It’s simple; I am probably the only living scientist who’s worked with this thing. Like I said, they started killing the others.”
“So there’s a cure for this?” Matt asked, snatching a cookie.
“I’m afraid there will never be a cure for what’s out there afflicting all those people. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. But with time, a vaccination may be possible.”
“This true?” Cole looked to Jeff.
“I suppose it is. My mission was on a need-to-know basis, and I didn’t receive details.”
“So what’s in North Carolina?” Matt said. “You mentioned something about that earlier.”
Tim hesitated for a moment. “There is a place—Facility Six—deep underground at an undisclosed location in Mount Airy. I’ve actually been there several times. Quite impressive. There was a research department there, a backup of sorts that had most of the files pertaining to the A.D. strand.”
“Does the A.D. stand for anything in particular?” Kristin asked.
“After Death,” Tim said without emotion. “It’s only partially activated when the host is alive. It’s after death that it mutates and becomes a fully functional, god-defying monstrosity.”
“How the hell did you manage to cook something like that up?” Cole inquired, wrapping an arm around Mary.
Tim adjusted his glasses. “Son, you have no idea what our government was capable of.”
“Wait a second. You just said that the virus mutates after death, correct?” Matt asked.
“Yes, that’s right.” Tim crossed his fingers.
“How the hell is that even possible?” asked Cole.
Tim turned to him and smiled. “Son, in science, it is our job to make the impossible possible. I would have to spend taxing hours to explain every little detail in order to make the pieces fit. And I’m much too tired for that.”
“Is every mutation the same?” Matt asked, switching subjects.
“I’m not sure I understand the question,” Tim answered, looking back to him.
“What I mean,” Matt said, “is this: We’ve come across particular zombies that seem to perform better than most. Some of them run, probably faster now than when they were alive. They’re a bit stronger and seem to hate everything that has a pulse. I’ve watched them pounce on the living and tear them apart, not even taking a single bite until they were dead.”
He glanced to Cole and Mary and continued. “There are those that hang outside the flock as if they’re scouting. They can yell so damn loud that if you were up close, I imagine you might lose your ability to hear for some time. This yell seems to attract the horde, with the runners almost always at the front line.”
“We even saw two over at John Robinson’s house that appeared to be communicating with each other through a series of barks,” Cole added. “They were like runners only… smarter.”
“Don’t forget about that big thing we saw last week,” Alex said. “It threw a car at us.”
“You never mentioned that before,” Mary interjected with slit eyes.
Neither Matt nor Cole said anything; they only exchanged a glance.
“I believe, young man, what you are referring to is what we in the la
b recorded as an infected individual who suffered from a rare disease called autoimmune hemolytic anemia.” Tim let the words float for a few moments. “It is a disease that produces autoantibodies in your bloodstream. Said autos attack red blood cells, destroying your immune system. It is a disorder found more often in women than men, and it can affect any age group.
“We tested the A.D. virus on numerous individuals. The sick, the not so sick, the dying. One subject I tested had this disorder. And when I introduced the virus, the damn thing spread at an exponential rate. It turned the blood into a substance like rubber… or muscle. The thing just kept growing, even sprouting… tentacles. We were damn fortunate that the subject died before he finished transforming.” Tim shifted in the chair.
“I don’t get it,” Mary said. “What the hell does that have to do with some disorder?”
“You see, some of the symptoms are an enlarged spleen and abdominal fullness. We hypothesized that if the A.D. virus—which, at the time we tested it, was severely unstable—were introduced to someone with this disorder, or any with similar symptoms, mass physical mutation would be a likely scenario. We called this monstrosity a Titan.”
“A Titan.” Cole almost sounded teasing. He looked to Matt. “I thought our names for the bastards were bad.”
“Have you ever seen one up close?” Jeff asked.
Matt shook his head. “No. Only from a few hundred yards away, thankfully.”
Jeff grinned. “Thankfully’s right.” He turned to Tim. “We have, and let me tell you, they ain’t pretty. Dr. Grant and I encountered one at the extraction zone.”
“We missed our flight,” Tim picked up. “One of the A.H.A. monsters—a Titan—swatted the helicopter as it was taking off, without us.”
Jeff looked to everyone. “We weren’t priority anymore. Things were just too bad out there.”
“The damn thing, it rummaged through the wreck and devoured those charred corpses… devoured them whole…” Tim shook his head and scratched his chin.
“We’ve encountered these runners and screamers you speak of too,” Jeff said. “Definitely not something you want to come across.”
“As I said before,” Tim said after regaining composure, “the A.D. virus is very unstable. I wouldn’t be surprised if more mutations occur. It might even jump species. Anything is possible, unfortunately.”
“But there are no zombie dogs or bears?” Kristin asked hesitantly.
“Not yet. The A.D. virus was engineered to activate with human DNA alone. But never say never, my dear. Not with science. They taught us that at the university.”
“So what you’re saying,” Matt said, “is that each infected could mutate in its own way.”
“Never say never,” Tim repeated.
There was a moment of silence. The fact that the survivors had an answer, or most of one, for why the dead walked wasn’t as comforting as one would think. Some things were better left unknown, and Matt found himself wondering if this was one of those times.
“So,” Mary said, “how’d you end up here?”
“Luckily we found a man named Harry up in Maryland,” Tim said. “He flew us down in his Cessna. We were headed for Fac-Six, but were grounded at Newport News/Williamsburg International. Ran out of fuel.”
“That’s where Tim and I met up with Angela and Carrie,” Jeff continued, smiling at Angela.
“The airport was the worst place we could have landed.” Tim sat back and put his hands behind his head.
“Damn place was crawling with zombies,” Angela said. “I don’t even know why I let Carrie talk me in to going there.” She chuckled. “Guess after seeing your plane circling the runway, she thought you might be some sort of rescue.”
“I wish we were.” Tim smiled.
“That was two days ago,” Jeff said. “The rest, as you know, has led us here.”
“So, you two are headed to a place free of infected?” Anna inquired, her anger abated.
“Yes—”
“There is no guarantee,” Jeff said, cutting Tim off, “that any place is free of this insanity, Mrs. Hamley.”
“Is there room for us?”
Matt looked to Anna.
“I mean,” she continued, “the way you made it sound, if we could make it there, we’d be safe, much safer than here.”
“If we make it,” Jeff corrected. “Don’t forget that we’ve lost good people along the way. The world doesn’t seem to want us to survive, ma’am.”
“They’ll take anyone I bring with me, I’m sure.” Dr. Grant gave a strange, almost godly smile after he said this.
Matt flinched and started tapping the floor with his foot. He studied the doctor and the grin on his face. There was no doubt that Dr. Timothy Grant was a smart man, but he could be blowing smoke up everyone’s rears. It just seemed too easy, he surmised.
His gears were turning all night, spinning the possibilities of Facility Six and the news he’d received from some random survivor named Han. He’d wanted to ask the soldier and scientist if they’d heard anything about the bombings, but decided against it for now; the look in Anna and Kristin’s eyes when they heard about the Facility was enough to keep him quiet. Anna, he felt, had lost much more, and he’d already assumed his family was dead, anyway.
CHAPTER 20
“So how’d you guys end up here?” Jeff asked, stifling a yawn and taking a sip from the warm cup of coffee in his hand. His neck was a little sore, but his spot on the recliner was more than he could ever ask for. He looked across the kitchen table to Cole, who was eating a pastry, and waited for an answer.
The story—the entire story—took a few minutes to share with him. It was then that Jeff understood just how much the world had changed. Bruce’s demise came as a shock to him, but he admitted that he would’ve done the same if someone had cost him so much. God knows how many people, both infected and potentially infected, he’d killed—whether intentionally or not—to get to where he sat. To Jeff, it seemed the two friends were the so-called “leaders” of this small group that had outlasted most of the known civilization. They’d made decisions when the others couldn’t, and, because of that, Jeff was alive as well. Persius’s goons should never have gotten the drop on a United States trained soldier, but they had.
Survival of the fittest. He took another drink.
The pit, he noticed, was a real work of genius. Well, not the construction itself, of course. No, it was the fact that they’d managed to do such a thing, working together to accomplish a greater goal. Though he was new to these lucky few, he’d pretty much figured the roles the others played in and out of the house.
Matt and Cole, possibly even the kid, Alex, were the foragers. Mary was the one who’d hold things together until they got back. Anna, the pregnant woman, was more of a liability than anything else. She seemed like she was in another world last night, and the others kept giving her—and then each other—an uncomfortable glare. Something was wrong with her, and it spread deeper than the loss of her husband. Kristin, the young Miss-I-Know-Everything, had mentioned a background in nursing, so she was useful, and seemed a bit smitten with Matt judging by the way she tried to hide her eyes from his.
Now they had Angela, and she made herself useful in a fight. With his and Tim’s presence, the heroes/heroine, the medic, and the loon now had a soldier, a fighter, and a scientist as well.
But for how long? Jeff scratched the back of his head and chewed on a piece of the pastry Cole had given him.
Tim would surely want to leave soon. His work waited for him, and he could be very stubborn if he didn’t get his way. As Jeff looked past Cole, out through the small opening in the middle of the window above the sink (a hole used for spotting oncoming rotters, he presumed), he found himself loathing the idea of leaving. Ever since he’d met Tim, his life had been in constant jeopardy, but here and now… this was the only time Jeff had felt anywhere near safe. He actually slept on a recliner—which beat sleeping on the cold tiled floor of some lo
oted store, or its roof. Either was as comfortable as chewing glass with sewage water to wash down the shards. Things were nice here, and they were relatively protected. He’d seen enough zombie movies to know the premise of survival in this scenario, and it was one that looked promising—much more promising—than anything he’d experienced yet.
“You sleep well?” Cole finally broke the silence.
“Yeah, you bet. I’d almost gotten used to half-sleep.” Jeff took another sip of his coffee. “So were you guys planning on staying here, waiting all this out?”
Cole let the question linger for a moment. “Honestly, I never planned on this place being our permanent home. Never really planned on surviving this long either.” He shrugged. “Almost seems unfair to expect anything these days.”
Jeff nodded.
“I guess we’re just staying here until something better comes along.”
“Well,” Jeff reached out and stretched his arms, “what’re your thoughts on Dr. Grant’s so-called Facility?”
“My first thought is that the place has been overrun just like everywhere else.”
“What about here?” Jeff said. “You guys don’t seem to be having too many problems, barring last night’s quarrel with the dead.”
Cole chuckled and tapped the table with his knuckles. “Dumb luck and poor planning have led us here. We’re just making the best of it, I guess. And we’ve had our share of problems too.” He stood and grabbed another package of pastries from the counter. “Want another?”
“Yeah, I could take another.”
He handed one to Jeff, sat, and continued. “It almost sounds too good to be true if you really wanna know how I feel. I mean, even if Doctor Grant manages to get there and it isn’t swarming with those rotters, what says they won’t shoot him? Is there a big sign at every secret facility with Tim’s picture on it?”
Jeff laughed a little. “I think they have ‘High Priority’ under his lab identification photo in several locations, actually. The government’s pretty well organized, when they want to be.”
“Yeah, well where were they two weeks ago?”
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