The colonel continued while keeping his arm draped over his neck. “These two saps had just come from Chicago, probably on some kind of business trip, dontcha think? Or maybe they just liked to dress nice? Maybe they knew they had the disease. Doesn't matter now. We tracked their route back to Chicago using credit card data from the plastic in their wallets. We know they arrived here just after the bridges were closed across the Mississippi. Not many people were driving into St. Louis. My team found them at the baseball stadium downtown, of all places. They were caught up in the nets above home plate. Hayes' team was instrumental in bringing these samples to us.”
Is that why Hayes was downtown when I met him?
The two zombies had been climbing steadily to the top of the wire mesh below the walkway. Out of instinct, Liam took a step back, breaking the loose hold of the colonel's arm. He made no effort to force Liam to stand there.
When the first zombie reached the transition between the wide mesh and the narrow mesh above it, he was stymied. With no means of putting its fingers into the tiny wire mesh, it was unable to climb all the way to the top. It simply pawed away at its prey, unable to continue. Someone had really thought through this contraption.
“I don't get it. Why are these guys climbing? What's different about them?”
“BINGO! That's what we're trying to figure out. Normally the sick are dumber than a box of hammers, but these guys seem to have the intelligence of very stupid apes. That doesn’t do justice to apes because apes could outsmart these two in a hundred different ways.”
Liam knew the climbers were important. Different, at the very least. He’d seen hundreds, probably thousands, of individual zombies of late up close and personal, and none of them were climbing like this. But the zombies he did see must have also had a special skill, unless they were just the plain old average zombie—as if such a beast could exist.
“So, does that mean the rest of the zombies around here also have a special skill?”
“That’s a good question, son. Maybe their skill is being effective killers. That's something we know for certain, right?” He laughed just a little too readily for Liam.
“You mean you really don't know?” His dad was the conspiracy theorist, but those stories about government cover-ups, government corruption, and government incompetence did wear off just a little bit on the son. “Didn't you guys cause this plague in the first place?”
The colonel looked at Liam with real surprise. “Why would you say that? You think your government is so evil it would create a plague that would condemn every man, woman, and child on Earth to a horrible and endless death? That would include my own wife and son, by the by.”
Liam kept a blank look on his face.
“As God as my witness, I have no knowledge of anyone in our government being a part of the creation of this plague. Imagine how far ahead we'd be if we knew how it was created.”
“OK, so who made it? Where did it come from?”
But the colonel seemed put out. He slid the plywood back in place on the walkway so the climbers were out of view. Then he walked back down the stairway and off the corral. He stood not far away and lit a cigarette.
Liam looked back into the pit where the terrestrial zombies were still pawing uselessly up at him. He'd seen plenty of these over the past six days, but up close and from the safety of this platform he realized how unnatural they appeared. The area around their eyes was caked with blood, as was their noses, ears, and mouths. Their necks had malicious wounds, with that side of their body coated with dried blood. They must have had torrents of the stuff pouring out. What was it that made them bleed profusely—beyond the obvious chunk of flesh missing where they were initially infected. His stomach was always unsettled at the sight of blood, and now was no exception.
He looked up to give himself a break. From his perch, he could see over the small rise he'd seen earlier. He could now see the small cart path go over the top and into a small clearing. A small yellow construction tractor was next to a big pile of dirt. He could see something else. Something unmistakable.
I think I know why he brought me out here.
He began walking toward the steps, but paused just before he reached them. He did something spur-of-the-moment he couldn't remember doing since he was a small child. He took a knee, made the sign of the cross, and said a quick prayer asking forgiveness for any wrongs he may have done in his life. He admitted he wasn't sure if he really believed in God, but he needed the help of someone now, and Grandma's God was good enough for him. Prayer always seemed to work for her.
“Really, Liam? You still think I'm going to kill you out here?”
“I know what's over the hill, sir.”
“Ah. That.” He took a heavy drag on his cigarette, then tossed it down.
Liam's most pressing thought was that he felt the colonel should know better than to drop a lit cigarette in a forest. He'd been programmed by society since birth to “help prevent forest fires.”
“Let's go take a look, son.”
He began walking back to the path, then turned left on the mysterious spur, leaving Liam to follow or not.
Liam considered making a run for it once again, but he was still afraid what they'd do to Grandma without him as her advocate. Paralyzed with many conflicting options and emotions, he defaulted to the easiest. He followed him over the rise.
4
The bodies were tossed into a shallow hole. The attendant tractor was too small to excavate a proper burial plot, but it made a noble effort to gather dirt and pile it nearby. Many bodies were still exposed, awaiting proper covering.
The colonel began talking as Liam caught up. “We've been out here for weeks. Testing. Examining. Hoping. These brave people gave their lives so my team could try to make headway against this thing. It pains me to say this, but there's no other way to do what we've been doing. I just wish it didn't always end up with the subject laying out here in this grave.”
They both stood there for a long time. Many of the bodies were partially covered by dirt, or had a white powder covering them, but the pit still stank. The bloody signature of the infection was present on the bodies lying in front of them. They'd been infected.
Then it hit him. Weeks! They'd been researching the plague even before the sirens went off. He filed it away...
“Even the animals won't touch them. We think it’s because the sickness scares them off, but we can't be sure. Maybe we should run some tests.” But he said it without heart.
The colonel got out another cigarette.
“These are all old people? Is this what you mean by 'experiment' on them? What in God's name are you doing with them?”
“Liam, you have no idea how lucky you are. Do you think I give tours to every doe-eyed teen who comes through here? The answer you're looking for is no, this isn't the outcome we hope for. I brought you back here so you'd know the riddles we're trying to solve. You weren't supposed to see this, but I respect your inquisitiveness. We believe your grandma has qualities that will advance our research a long way toward answering those riddles.”
“And then she ends up on the pile?”
The man took a long drag before answering. “I don't want anyone to end up on this pile. Really, I don't. I won't tell you it could never happen, but I will tell you your grandma is different. If the medical team's theory is correct, she may in fact be practically unique. That uniqueness is why I'm even talking to you. It's vital she be protected and comforted until we can get her to a proper medical facility. I want you to help me with that.”
“And then you are going to kill me when I've served my purpose?”
The colonel looked at Liam with a hard gaze. “Son, are you trying to get me to off you? You seem awful anxious to remind me I should be out here killing you.”
That sent him reeling. Death was all he could think about since this crisis started, but thoughts of death exploded after Victoria was shot. Spending a day riding with a group no younger than eighty also turned him inward and
downward. He admitted he was scraping rock bottom on the zest-for-life scale, but he didn't consciously want to die. Far from it.
What answer did he expect? “I don't want to die. I don't know why I keep asking about it. I guess I'm nervous about my grandma. About my girlfriend being shot. About the death of our whole world.”
“That's a fair answer. None of us are having a good day. Not anymore.”
“It also doesn't help that I don't know what's going on. I see the pen with the two types of zombies, and I understand there are costs with the experiments you're running—even if I don't agree with your methods. But none of this tells me anything important about the disease, its origin, or how it can be stopped. I hear you about needing Grandma, but I want to make a difference too. I want to help save the world. I know that sounds corny coming from a fifteen-year-old...”
“I wish I could tell you more. I trust you more than I probably should. But I don't trust you enough to tell you anything that might jeopardize our project here. We know someone started this plague. Whether it was a single person, a small group, or a major government—we don't know. I can't take even the most minute chance you found your way here with the intention of helping them. Even accidentally.”
The colonel let that sit for a few minutes. Liam couldn't take his eyes off the pile of bodies in front of him. He imagined Victoria on the pile. Jones on the pile. Phil on the pile. His mom and dad.
Snap out of it!
With great effort, he made himself look away. “Can we go back now?”
“Yeah, this place isn't my favorite place to relax.”
They hadn't been on the return trail long when the sound of jets went screaming over their heads, very low. With all the foliage on the trees, it was impossible to see them, but the colonel seemed to know who they were and what they were doing. “Before I met with you today, I was managing a crisis at another of our camps out in the sticks of Missouri. Those planes are going to eradicate the problem. Those Air Force boys and girls just love playing with their toys.”
“You mean they're going to destroy a camp just like this one?”
“Containment failed.”
And there it is.
Liam knew containment always failed. Always. Every book he could remember reading about zombies had some element that ended with “and the zombies broke through.” He knew this camp was safe only as long as it took for chance and the human condition to break things apart so the zombies could exploit the weakness and overwhelm them all. It was a well-worn theme in zombie literature. Exceptions were exceptionally rare. Even space stations and off-world colonies couldn't escape zombies. This pitiful little camp surrounded by a flimsy fence would definitely fall. The only question was when.
“Don't think I don't know our fate. I think every camp is going to end up with bunker busters raining down on them, but it pains me every time I hear of another one falling to the infection. If we had proper medical facilities, we might have been able to solve this thing in short order. Working in tents, with unreliable generators and with second rate Doctors, has set us back as a species, perhaps forever.”
“Why don't you use a hospital?”
“I guess you didn't happen upon one in your travels, eh? Where do you think all those sick people went when they first came down with this disease? Hospital is just another name for morgue today.”
They were getting close to the main camp once again. As the tents came back into view, the colonel made one last plea. “I feel for you, Liam. This is all depressing stuff. I hope you see what we're all about here, and that you'll consider how badly we need your grandma to help us. I can't change anything that happened up to this point, but I promise to do what I can to provide the very best future for her. For you. The cure is out there.”
A short pause.
“It has to be.”
Oh hell.
Liam was shocked he had no idea if there even was a cure. Everything he told him up to that point was contingent upon the belief there was a cure. All those people in the pit grave had contributed everything they had to the cause of finding it. This guy was saying all those deaths have so far yielded nothing. He was still unsure of the existence of that cure. He just said a companion camp was being erased from memory by the screaming death above. How many camps were there? How many graves? How many dead grandmas and grandpas? What if there was no cure?
No way Grandma is going to end up in a pit.
Privately, Liam was making plans to break her out of this place. Sadly, even with the most lax security one could imagine, escape for the both of them was a long shot, at best. Grandma couldn't run off into the woods and scale the fence. Steal a vehicle? Enlist help from inmates who actually want to be here? Roll her out the front gate into the chaos of the world? Liam could only find headwinds against his route to freedom.
He would have to bide his time.
Then an image popped in his head; a logical conclusion to this whole affair. Fire and death.
Were the planes destined to bomb this camp already in the air?
Paradoxically he was shaken to the core to realize the thought actually comforted him.
Chapter 9: Containment Failure
As the pair re-entered the complex of tents, a soldier ran up to the colonel with a message.
“Sir, I uh—”
He looked at Liam, then back to his boss.
“Speak freely unless you're reporting a state secret.”
“Yessir. The MRAP has arrived and we have one of the subjects in the research suite. He didn't look like he'd survive for much longer.”
“I'll be right there.”
The soldier tore off and they resumed walking the short distance to the tents.
“Liam, I'm going to do something that is completely outside protocol and invite you to watch this procedure. I want you to understand what both sides of the equation look like, not just that pit back there.”
Would seeing the experiment happen in real time change his mind about anything? Doubtful. But it would tell him more than if he was warming a cot back in the tent with Grandma. Better to know as much as possible.
“Is it going to be bloody?”
The colonel looked at Liam with a sideways glance, not in a flattering way.
“This is the apocalypse, son, and you're afraid of blood? Suck it up!”
In the end, Liam knew he would follow, blood or no blood. He was suddenly very committed to understanding what was going on in this place and, as much as possible, learn how he could eventually get Grandma out of there.
Step 1 was watching this procedure. Step 40 was walking her into his own home.
The colonel took him to one of the largest tents. He expected a throng of orderlies and doctors to be running about, spinning centrifuges or whatever they did in zombie movies. Instead, the first chamber contained a few folding chairs, as if it were a waiting area of some sort. The second, main, chamber was slightly cooler and marginally better lit, but was similarly sparse. A couple of people looked like medical staff, and the patient was laying on a fancy metal table underneath some lights in the middle of the room, but there was very little else in the large space.
“Where are all your people? ER doctors. The researchers.”
“You expected a hospital? This is it, kid. Now be quiet or I'll have to kill you.”
Even in his fragile mental condition, he recognized the joke. But he resolved to hold his tongue.
He took a seat off to the side of the central equipment, next to the colonel. There were a dozen other chairs in two neat rows of six, but there were no other observers. He thought about asking where Hayes might be, but he didn't want to accidentally get him invited.
The patient was lying down and secured with leather straps. There was a doughnut-shaped apparatus near his head. It looked ultra-modern in the tent, with wires and stuff running across the grassy floor and under the canvas wall—presumably to computers, generators, or whatever. Liam was unable to see who was on the table, tho
ugh it appeared to be an elderly gentleman. Only his restrained arms were visible, as a large, heavy blanket covered the lower half of his body.
The doctor, or at least the lead medical person, as it was difficult to deduce rank or responsibility from this lot, was spending most of her time tinkering with the doughnut contraption. He figured she had to be in charge because she was the only one who looked to be doing anything important. The two other staff were bringing things to and fro from a room at the back of the tent.
That left the colonel to tell him what was going to happen. “I'm afraid it isn't very interesting. They are getting something sorted with the CT scanner. When ready, the staff here injects infected blood into the patient, and then we use our sensors to track the physiological changes as well as brainwave activity. I don't think I'm giving away any secrets telling you that. We've tried taking the blood of newly infected, and from zombies we knew had been infected for a long time. We've tried giving just a little, and an entire transfusion. We've found none of that matters—the result is always the same. Death. But for some reason, elderly people hold the infection at bay much longer than the young.”
“OK, guys. Let's get this over with.”
The woman woke up the old man laying on the table. He was groggy for a long while, as if he'd been in a deep slumber. “Where am I? Who are you?” He looked confused, unsure where he was.
The staff tried to comfort the man, but to no avail. He strained against the restraints.
The woman had a syringe she was keeping low and out of sight of the volunteer, Liam didn't see it until the last moment before injection. It went quick.
The man calmed down immediately, like he knew he was done for.
“Please find my Janey.”
2
Liam wanted to jump up and throw off the shackles holding Bart to the table, but he remembered Bart was a volunteer. He suffered from dementia, but never gave any indication he was refusing to help. Maybe the dementia was worse than anyone realized.
Or maybe they didn't care.
Liam promised not to interfere; he was already on very thin ice. Sadly, he knew once the syringe went in, Bart's fate was sealed.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 44
