“Boss, do you want to handle this the same as the Librarian?”
I sat back and thought for a while. “I have no idea. I’ll give you a sign when I want to ratchet things up. We will do it in steps, so we get what we want.”
“Roger that, Boss. I’ll have him brought in now.” Brian left the room.
I sat there with my notebook sitting in front of me on the table, turned to a new sheet and waited with my pencil poised. I shifted in my seat, looking for the most comfortable position. I decided on sitting back in the chair and slightly leaning to my right, taking pressure off of my wounds and faking a relaxed posture. Inside, I was thrumming with excitement, I had no questions prepared. I was going to go off the cuff, and see where that took us.
The door opened and I pretended to be reading something on my notepad and ignored Joseph being brought in, bound with handcuffs. Brian and a guard worked quickly together to get him in his chair and attach his cuffs to a ring on the table. Brian stepped behind him and stood there with his massive arms crossed over his chest. I looked up finally and made a show of flipping pages on my notebook to a clear one. I placed it on the table with my pencil and cracked my knuckles. I tried my best to look bored, as if I was better than him. Joseph, squirmed in his chair and looked around the room wildly.
I settled my gaze on him and put a wicked smile on my lips. I waited not saying a word just letting him become more unsettled and fidgety. Finally, I broke the silence when I noticed a small bead of sweat roll down the side of his face from his hairline. “Joseph, good to see you again. Sorry it is not to your advantage this time.”
He finally seemed to recognize me, I watched as he tried to screw his courage into place and think of what to say. “I say, when I interviewed you I treated you with much more respect than you are showing now.”
I arched an eye-brow and then frowned slightly. “You sure did. All the way up to when you locked me in a room with a sadistic asshole named the Librarian. Oh I remember him very well, and what he did to me is fresh on my mind. Now, if I was you, Joe, may I call you Joe?” He frowned and went to speak, but I cut him off enjoying playing with him. “Fine, I will call you Joey instead. Hope you are ok with that moniker. I just want you to know I am being much nicer then the guy they sic’d on the Librarian. He barely left anything resembling a human being when he was done. I barely held my breakfast down. He sang pretty well, well ok, he didn’t sing, I don’t think he was up to singing. But he gave us a lot.”
I became quiet and watched Joseph as he processed what I’d just said. He opened and closed his mouth five times in a row as he would think of something to say, only to change his mind at the last second. I was enjoying being on this side of our conversation. What does that say about the man I was becoming? Am I as bad as this man? I fought the lump that tried to clog my throat and forced it down.
“So Joey, I am going to be very nice and ask you some questions. If I get good answers than you will not be harmed. If you are not open to our little conversation, then my big friend behind you will do things that will make you talk. Shall we give it a try?” I said tilting my head to the side and gave off a smug look.
More sweat rolled down Joseph’s face and he went pale. But he nodded slightly. “So, Joey, first question. Where are you on the ‘powers that be’ ladder of the Culling Initiative?” I wrote my question down using my short hand and sat back, waiting for an answer.
“I am midlevel at best,” he said sharply. I knew it was a lie due to how long he took to answer. But I wasn’t going to call him on it just yet.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Joey. Here is a great question. Who sits at the top of the Initiative?” I again wrote my question down and gave Joey a smile.
He sat there for a moment looking behind me at the wall. His eyes would dart back and forth as if he was trying to find an answer I would believe. “I don’t know. I am not high enough to know who gives the orders. I just follow them.”
“Wow, you are that little of a fish? Poor Joey, and here I thought you were much higher than a piss ant no one. Well if that is the truth then there is no further reason to question you, since I can’t get any information out of you.”
“So, what are you going to do to me?” He tried to look behind himself at the massive man standing there motionless.
“Nothing. You are not important thus no reason to keep you. I’ll have Brian here take you outside and put a bullet in your head. Then I’ll have to look for someone much higher up than you. Brian, if you will take out the trash, please.” I waved my hand as if dismissing the entire situation.
Joseph’s eyes looked like they were going to shoot from his head and across the room, bouncing off the walls. He sucked in a lung full of air and tried to move away from Brian who was walking toward him. “Ok I lied. I am fairly high up on the ladder. I have information I can provide.”
I put my hand up to stall Brian. “You lied to me Joey?” I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. I tried to look hurt and disappointed. “Why would you lie Joey? That’s really not very nice.” I looked past Joseph to Brian and addressed him. “Brian do we like liars?”
Brian dropped his voice and put as much bass into it as he could. “No Boss, we really don’t like that.”
I nodded my head as if agreeing with Brian. “Well Joey, you lied, you decided to make this conversation into something more. I gave you a chance, but you threw it away. Brian, if you can please show Joey here, what we do to liars?”
Brian walked forward and grabbed Joseph’s middle three fingers of his left hand and snapped them back, breaking them and sending Joseph into fits of screaming and yelling in pain. Brian took out a large serrated wicked-looking knife and put it against the top knuckle of the middle finger of which he’d just broken. He dragged it across the knuckle separating the skin and causing blood to well up. He then took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the knife.
“Ow, Joey, that looks like it hurt a lot!” I hissed in imaginary, sympathetic pain. “I really wouldn’t lie again, you never know what that guy will do next. I once watched him get so mad at this one guy for lying that he cut the man’s tongue out. Another time he hit a guy in the face so hard that he popped the guy’s eye out. So, unless you want him to ramp this up, I wouldn’t lie anymore.”
Joseph looked down at his fingers and nodded his head okay. “Great, Joey. I am so happy we got all of that out of the way. So, let’s try this again. Exactly how high are you on that ladder?”
He answered fast this time. “I’m in charge of the whole west coast west of the Rockies, from the Canada border to Mexico’s.”
I wrote this down. “Thank you, Joey. So let’s try that other question again. Who is at the top of the Initiative?”
“I don’t exactly know names. But it is a small group who sit on the top. I think one may be a high-placed politician in our government and I know one is the CEO of a respected European company, but I haven’t figured out which one yet,” he got out in a rush.
“Very good. See? I believe you Joey.” I gave Brian my attention. “Could you please ask the guards to bring some ice and a rag in for Joey here? He seems to be in a lot of pain.” Brian hid a smile behind his hand and nodded, and disappeared out the door.
I went back to my notepad and ignored Joseph’s whimpering, while I went over my notes. Brian reentered quickly and handed me a folded piece of paper and then placed some ice on Joseph’s hand and wrapped it all up in an ace bandage, taking his place behind him again. I unfolded the note and read it. I pursed my lips and sighed through my nose. “Well this ain’t good. Hey Joey, who is pushing the large zombie horde at us from Seattle?”
He raised his eyebrow in confusion then a look of rage crossed it. “That would be my, administer for the northwest region that the Initiative put in charge. He is supposed to answer to me, but it would seem he has other ideas. His name is Lewis and he is a slimy jerk. I told him to concentrate on his region and leave you guys to me. But I have a feelin
g he has decided to take things into his own hands.”
I wrote all this down, then considered my next line of questions. “Why did you create the zombie virus? Who recruited you into the Initiative? And what is the endgame here?”
“I honestly don’t know the end game. Congressman Sam Molina’s assistant approached me when I was in their home state of Florida at a medical conference. We sat down over scotch, and he suggested I could make tons more money if I created biochemical weapons for the military, and that they would be happy to help me get lucrative contracts, since they were head of the committees for our armed forces. He then handed me a file folder with a failed experiment and its formula and I was told that was as long as I made this work, they would take care of me. That was ten years ago, and that one meeting turned my company around and made us so much money. I receive orders from the group over an encrypted phone they gave me. That is all I know, really.” He sat back and winced over the pain from his fingers.
“Thank you Joey, I guess I can believe you so far. No one creates a virus like this without first creating a cure, so tell me about the cure.” I turned to a fresh page, I was so amazed at the info he was giving me. But now as I watched him I felt that we may have just reached an impasse. Joey, sat back in his seat and his eyes flicked to the corner of the room behind me. I watched as he struggled with something, that he wanted to hide from us.
“Joey, let me just say, you have been very cooperative and I appreciate it. But I want to remind you, that if you decide to try and hide something or hold something back, I will have the big man behind you take over this interrogation. And trust me, you do not want that to happen.” My words jolted his attention back to me. His eyes seem to focus for a second and then he went back to staring at the corner again.
Joey licked his lips and slid his attention fully back on to the topic at hand. I knew I had rattled him with the specter of Brian standing behind him. “There is no cure, Dan,” he said in a flat tone. “The zombies, as you call them, are not alive anymore. The virus kills the host completely, and then utilizes the body’s system to take control and animate it. So, there is no way to cure the virus and bring back the person it was before. In all purpose the virus is all that is left, its only thoughts are to feed and replicate itself through attacking the living.” Joey winced as he pressed his hand down on the ice and ace bandage, covering his injured one.
I put my pencil down and closed my eyes. I was rattled over this information, I had figured a cure existed and that Joey had it. I went through his words in my mind, thinking through their meaning. Something nagged at me, as my mind drifted back to Spokane and the absence of the zombies. I opened my eyes and gave Joey a bland smile. “I don’t believe you are telling me the entire truth, Joey. I think you are holding something back, something important. See, I don’t think that the Initiative would let you create something so lethal without having a leash on it, or a plan to eradicate it easily. If you are telling the truth, then there is no way of gaining the country, or world, back from them. So I am going to ask as nicely as I can. What are you not telling us?”
Joey’s eyes this time, swung toward the door of the room, instead of the corner he was so fond of staring at. I could see him gauging his chances of getting out of this room in one piece. I watched as he had an internal argument with himself of what he could tell me. “Brian, I believe our friend here needs some encouragement. I am going to leave the room and get some coffee.” I ate the pain I felt, as I slowly gained my feet under me and walked to the door. I opened it and walked out into the hallway. A guard stood nearby, armed with a sidearm and gave me a questioning look.
“Sir, is there something I can do for you?” He asked.
“Yes, could you please grab me a cup of black coffee, please?” I slid against the far wall and used it to help prop myself up.
“Of course, sir. Will you be ok without a guard?”
I patted the trusty 1911 I had on my belt holster and smiled. He saluted and walked down the hallway. I closed my eyes and tried to recover from the pain. Just then, a scream came from the room. I knew Brian was doing what he had to do. I decided to give him a while, and let Joey feel the full amount of pain he deserved. Five minutes went by, and the screams had slowly backed off from their intensity to a dull moan. I felt a tap on my shoulder and opened my eyes, finding the guard holding out a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. “Sir are you ok?”
“I will be ok. Thank you for the coffee, I appreciate it.” I took the coffee and blew the steam off of the top of the cup. I took a tentative sip and almost made a face over the taste. It was instant coffee and it had a bitter burnt taste to it, I hate instant coffee as much as I hated the zombies, but any port in a caffeine storm and all that. I pushed off of the wall and went back to the door which the guard reached out quickly and opened for me. I made my entrance pushing the burning pain out of my mind and took my seat. I took a full minute drinking the shitty coffee, and ignoring Joey. I finally put the cup down onto the table and looked up at Brian. He smiled and gave me a wink.
“I believe Joey has some things to tell you sir.” Brian informed me as he took his place behind a disheveled and bruised Joey.
Joey’s left eye was swollen shut, he had a split lip and his right ear was bleeding slightly. Honestly it looked as if Brian had gone easy on him. I picked up my pencil and notebook, and gave Joey my full attention. “Is there something you want to tell me Joey?”
“Yes, just please, don’t let him hurt me again,” he whispered, through his pain. “There is no cure. The original plan was to let the infected, as we call them, do their job and then we could come in and corral them up.” He hung his head in defeat and stared at his hands through his one working eye.
I wrote down everything he had said and looked over to Brian. As I did, the room rocked to the side and I was nearly thrown from my chair. Brian rushed to my side and placed his massive arms around me, shielding me from debris which fell from the ceiling. Joey was not so lucky and had been hit by a lighting fixture which had fallen down, striking the side of his head and knocking him unconscious. The room shook for nearly a full minute. And just as fast as it happened the room became still again.
“You ok, Boss?” Brian asked as he continued to hold me in his arms.
“What the fuck just happened?” I coughed through the dust and fine debris which coated the air like a fog.
“Explosion. Stay here I am going to go find out what happened.” He removed my 1911 from its holster racked the slide, and handed it back to me. “If he moves in any way shoot him in the stomach.” Brian ran to the door and had to push hard to get it to open. He slipped through and I could hear him yelling at someone. I looked over toward Joey and found him alive if his chest rising and falling was any indication. I got up from my chair in pain and looked around at the debris on the floor and the cracks in the walls. I checked and made sure that Joey was still secured with his handcuffs chained to a hook in the table and then made my way from the room. The hallway looked as if a giant had grabbed it and shook it. The walls were no longer straight but instead bowed in on themselves. I saw Brian at the far end, gesturing for me to come to him.
I holstered my 1911 and using my left hand against the wall to help me stay upright, made my way over to him. Brian was holding a cloth against the hallway guards head and talking to him. “You’re ok, soldier. Get up, and find an operating radio. We need to know what in the blue fuck is going on here.” The guard looked up at him and nodded, then grabbed his proffered hand and got to his feet with a groan.
“There is a radio in the main office just over here.” He walked away and we followed him further down the hallway toward the front of the building. He unlocked and opened the door with a key ring on his belt webbing and we followed him in. The building rocked again, but with much less power this time. The guard slipped into a chair and put on the headset grabbed the mike and called out. “Gridiron, to Base, come in.” He got quiet and pressed his headset closer to his
ears, eyes closed listening intently to someone on the other side.
“Roger all Base, out.”
The guard turned to us and gave a sad smile. “The base is under red alert, two jets flew over and dropped bombs on two buildings, and one fell near us. Three of our jets were able to get off the ground and are defending the base from anymore attacks.”
Brian looked over at me. “I think they know we have Joey here and may be trying to stop him from talking to us. Or softening us up before the hordes get here. What do you think we should do Boss?”
I grabbed the mike and headset from the guard. “Major Welko to Colonel Kuppers come in.” I waited for a minute and called again.
“Kuppers. Go ahead Welko.” The radio came to life with Kuppers’ voice.
“We are in the interview building, what is the plan? Out.”
“I am pushing up the timetable to get people out. I have more fighters getting into the air to protect the base and escort the transports. I am ordering a full bug out of the base. Get your prisoner and transport all to the hangars. Out.”
“What about the surprise we were going to set up? Out.”
“Still a go, got them working over time getting it ready. Now, move it! Out.”
I turned to Brian and the guard. “We need to get moving out to the main hangar ASAP. Brian, grab the prisoner.” I looked over at the guard finally reading his name on his BDUs. “Clarkson, is there anyone else in the building?” He nodded his head yes. “Go and round them up and get them out-side, and grab a couple of Humvees. I need some time to get myself outside, with this mess I cannot use the chair, and we don’t have the time for one of you to help me, so get moving.”
Brian gave me a thumbs up and disappeared out of the office. The guard handed me a key and pointed me down the hallway for the easiest way outside. I thanked him and he left to fulfill my orders. My legs were starting to feel like Jell-O and my energy level was starting to wane fast, but I leaned against the wall and kept putting one leg in front of the other till I came to the front entrance. I used the key the guard had given me and after a while, was able to balance myself enough to unlock the door and push it open. I almost fell outside onto the ground but grabbed the door jamb just in time to stop myself. I was at the end of my energy reserves and my legs were now cramping and letting me know they were not happy, along with my chest and stomach. I could feel each wound from the last two months screaming at me to stop, but I kept moving knowing that I had to keep going.
Zombie Theorem (Book 3): The End Game Page 9
