Smoke piled in through the few air vents near the ceiling and stung their eyes. Tom quickly oriented to cover as his motor memory kicked in, and he dove to the floor, just behind the crates in the centre of the large space.
“What now?!” Emile shouted, covering his ears as the sounds of combat exploded all around them.
Seeking overhead cover, Tom crawled under the massive armoured vehicle to the left and gestured the others to follow, just as the first pieces of concrete slab fell from the ceiling. The doctor yelped as another shockwave threatened to burst their eardrums. Clutching the flash drive with one hand, she held on to Tom’s pant leg with the other.
“We need to move!” Tom gritted his teeth as a piece of the ceiling collapsed onto the armoured vehicle before crashing onto the ground, mere inches from their position.
He felt the fog of war descend, his mind a whirlwind of adrenaline, flashbacks, and anger. Anger at himself for ever having left Julie and Anna behind. Anger at the situation little off-the-grid excursion had gotten them into.
“Topside!” Tom barked. “It’s the only place left to go.”
“Are you insane?” The doctor tried to argue, but Tom was already on his way.
“Damnit!”
Ducking and weaving between the falling debris, they all sprinted for the exit. Having undone the chain on the stairwell access, Tom virtually jumped up the first steps. First to reach the roof, he leaned into the door and pushed hard.
The doctor and Emile, running like maniacs, had already closed the distance. It flung open and crashed against the outer wall. Immediately, bullets impacted all around the frame. Tom ducked and scanned the rooftop, but it was impossible to tell where the shots were coming from. He kept crawling until he reached a large HVAC unit mounted nearby. Sitting upright behind the giant machine, he paused. Bullets still ricocheted all around, but they seemed random, lacking any particular aim.
Within seconds both the doctor and Emile arrived at the door. Emile shrieked as shrapnel from the steel doorframe tore into his cheek. He clutched his face, grimacing as pain jolted through his skull. Streams of blood poured from between his fingers. Quick to react, the doctor pulled him to the ground in one swift move and single-handedly started dragging him over to Tom’s position. They put pressure on the gaping wound, and Emile’s screams rose above the combat noise.
After a few more minutes, the gunfire became more sporadic. The sound of explosions drifted further into the distance, and eventually, the hostilities ceased altogether.
“I think the worst is over.” Tom wiped a thick mix of dust and sweat off his face and took a peek from behind the HVAC unit.
Emile also had fallen more or less silent, whimpering quietly as he picked at his face. The doctor pulled a tissue from a pack in her pocket and assisted him as best as she could.
“You know, you are crazy, Tom. What the hell are we doing up here?” She scolded him.
The fact that she had called him by his first name for the first time made her reprimand feel almost motherly.
“And where would you have gone, doc?” He wasn’t about to let her get to him.
There was no reply. She just stared at him with a blank expression.
“Look, there are these things out there as well as, by the sounds of it, a small army of trigger-happy armed men.” There was something about her that made Tom feel like he had to justify his actions.
“We, on the other hand, have nothing but a Sat phone which, by the way, only works out in the open.” He unfolded the short antenna and held up the device. “So what would you have us do? Call a peace conference and hold a sit-in while one group nibbles at our asses and the other tries to shoot us in the head?”
He felt the anger return but immediately regretted his outburst. It wasn’t their fault. Whatever was happening, it was his insistence that had led them to this place.
“Look,” he continued more calmly, “It was the only option under the circumstances. We can at least stay out of sight and try to summon help. Better than nothing, in my humble view.”
The doctor just nodded. It was her turn to feel a little sheepish.
He held up the phone, angling the antenna away from the nearest foliage and squarely at the sky.
“Battery’s down to one bar.” They held their breath. He pressed the call button, and it began to dial.
It seemed to take forever for the phone to connect to the network, but finally, Tom’s face lit up only to turn sour. He shook his head.
“Anything?” Emile looked up, the long cut in his face giving him a ghoulish appearance.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Tom smirked and held the phone so the other two could listen in. “We know we have a good friend in Jesus.”
At the other end of the line, the Christian song‘s chorus blared in an endless call-holding loop. Then it went dead. And along with it, the sat phone.
“Hallelujah,” the doctor responded sarcastically.
Dejected, she sunk back against the HVAC unit.
Tom dropped the phone back in his bag and got on his belly.
“Let’s see how good a friend we have in Him.” He winked back at the doctor and slowly started to crawl towards the far end of the rooftop, roughly above where he estimated the shots had come from.
If whatever plan they would come up with was to have even the slightest chance of success, they would need to know exactly whom or what they were dealing with. The doctor and Emile watched intently as Tom tried to become one with the roof in an effort to avoid discovery by whoever was waiting down below.
He edged forward ever-so-slowly until he was just ahead of the raised ledge that ran the entire length of the roof. Keeping his body as flat as possible, he pulled himself up and over until he was just able to get a glimpse of the area.
Below him, several bullet-riddled bodies lay next to the shattered solar panels. As far as he could tell, they had been civilians, in stark contrast to the men moving around between them. Those were dressed in a hotchpotch of military uniforms, carrying a variety of weapons and some rather unorthodox personal items. There were gold chains, shiny watches, and woolly hats. One even wore a Yankees baseball cap.
‘Rebels.’ Tom watched them as they loitered about, here and there poking one of the motionless corpses with the barrel of a gun. No doubt, they were one of the many groups roaming the countryside where Ebola had caused people to abandon their villages, often forced to leave their possessions behind. They were the kind of marauders UN peacekeepers were engaging all over the place.
One soldier, in particular, stood out from their ragtag assembly. The man, heavyset and muscular like a professional wrestler, moved with the determination that escaped the others. His hair braided into cornrows, he had a mouth full of gold teeth that glistened in the morning sun every time he opened it.
While the other rebels were killing time, bored and lazily kicking around bits of rubble, the man’s eyes darted back and forth between the bodies, scanning them for movement with uncanny intensity. One by one, he walked up to them, knelt down and, mumbling something unintelligible, stabbed each one in the head with one swift downward strike of his large knife. The blade penetrated their faces through the eye and the lacrimal bone, pushing through and sliding back out with terrifying ease. Even at a distance, the crunching of bone and squelching of eyes made Tom’s stomach turn. With each stab, the tall, dark man flicked back his thick braids, turned his face skyward, and a moan so sorrowful that it seemed to emanate from the very pit of his soul escaped his gold-filled mouth.
Tom quickly dropped back below as the man’s eyes travelled along the ledge. Unsure whether the man had caught a glimpse of him, Tom stayed motionless and held his breath, fully expecting another volley of gunfire to be the next thing he would hear. Another howl told him otherwise, as down below the rebel continued his ritual.
The sun disappeared behind a group of clouds, and with it, the glare from the broken solar panels and Tom risked another look. He recoile
d. What he had mistaken for part of the man’s braids was actually a necklace. A necklace of a very different kind. Human scalps strung neatly onto a piece of rope, each one in a different state of decay. Tom shuddered. It took all his willpower to not just get up and run.
More details of the man’s strange routine came into view as he knelt down beside another corpse, this one closer to the building than the others. An open satchel slung over his shoulder, dangled loosely by his side. Just like before, he brought down his knife, cleanly penetrating the corpse’s skull through the socket, before retrieving the blade and letting out yet another mournful howl.
But this time, instead of sheathing the knife, he twisted the blade and, with one slice of its razor-sharp edge, removed a piece of skin and hair from the head, dropping it into the satchel where it joined several others. ‘A collector.’ Tom had seen enough. They needed a plan, and they needed it fast before any of the men below decided to go exploring inside the building.
Suddenly there was movement further ahead of the rebels. Some wearing civilian clothing, others lab uniforms, a handful of shambling figures spilled from the underbrush near the service road. Blood from large wounds around their midsections had soaked through their clothing. Coagulated and black, it contrasted sickly against the white of their coats, from which remnants of small intestine dangled like fancy fringes.
‘These must be the ones that escaped from here,’ Tom thought to himself as the first of the group, a thin local man in his forties with stumps where his hands once had been, reached the rebels. Still loitering about the smashed panels, the armed men barely blinked. There was no panic, no screaming, not even a sense of urgency. Instead, relaxed each one raised his weapon, acquired their target with indifferent precision, and fired.
A simultaneous volley of single, well-placed shots exploded the heads of the oncoming civilians. As their bodies hit the ground, the men went back to standing around and waiting for their next order. To Tom, their cold, calculating demeanour was as impressive as it was dangerous. These were hardened veterans of their cruel trade. They would shoot first without hesitation and ask questions later, if at all. They had the stony faces of impenitent killers. Killers as dead inside as the people they had just dispatched.
‘If eyes are the window to the soul,’ Tom thought, ‘then theirs have lost all humanity.’
As the muscular man with his necklace of scalps wandered over to the pile of freshly terminated corpses, Tom slowly crept away from the ledge. He needed to find a quiet place, needed to gather his thoughts. His heart rate slowly returned to normal. His internal OODA loop restarted, and he felt comforted by the fact. He knew he needed to get away, get back to Julie and Anna, before whatever this was hitched a ride across the border.
For years Julie had mocked him for obsessing about contingency plans. At first, she had felt irritated by it, even accused him of having OCD, but after years of choosing restaurant seats based on risk assessment, keeping a bail-out kit next to their bed and even going through the odd home invasion drill in the middle of the night, she had accepted it as an incorrigible part of the man she loved.
Now, thousands of miles away, he hoped that perhaps something had stuck. If he wasn’t able to make it back to them in time, maybe she would leave with Anna before it was too late. But then again, she had always been the stubborn one, and he feared that she would stick it out, waiting for him to come home.
He was certain that going it alone, without having to drag around civilian dead weight, his skills would carry him through. Sneak away through the bush, circle around and backtrack. If the taxi was still where they left it, he would be back in Kinshasa before the next morning. And with a bit of luck, he would bribe some airline desk person and get on the very next flight.
‘But what about the other two?’ A little voice inside his head nagged. He would have to leave them behind. Deserting a team in a time of need had never been in his genes and probably never would be.
He felt torn. And he hated it.
The doctor and Emile were still sitting where he had left them, eagerly awaiting his update.
“The good news is, we have rebels down there who are pretty much clearing the area of any of those other things that chased you up here and have been keeping us from leaving.” He decided not to expand further on his observations. ‘No need to cause alarm.’
“If that’s the good news…?” The doctor didn’t buy it.
“Yeah, I’m afraid the rest isn’t all that great,” Tom admitted. “The guys down there don’t look much like the helping kind. In fact, quite the opposite. Enough said.”
He didn’t like what he had to say next, but it was their only option.
“I think we best stay put and hope they move on.” Tom made himself as comfortable as possible in the shade of the external wall of the stairwell.
“And that they don’t go nosing about the roof.” Emile sounded frightened.
“Nothing to do but wait.” Tom closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Either way, they would be stuck on the rooftop at least until darkness would cover a possible escape. Exhausted, Tom found himself drift off into an uneasy snooze, images in a dreamlike dance, blending with the occasional sound of remote gunshots.
The sun was already low when the rumble of crates being overturned, and the starting engine of the heavy vehicle in the hangar below startled the three back into reality. There was a flurry of boots on metal, accompanied by the shattering of glass. The rebels had cleared most of the area of both wandering corpses and the living alike and had finally decided to explore the inside of the facility.
“Looks like we have ourselves some visitors,” Tom whispered.
He carefully got up and stood by the door. Emile followed and took the other side.
“Anyone or anything that comes through this door… Well, let’s just say we are going to have to grab their weapon and then kick the living daylights out of them.”
His knees slightly bent, Tom stood coiled and ready.
Emile gulped.
“I need to know that I can count on you.” Tom raised an eyebrow. Emile nodded and wiped his forehead.
“And, doc?” Tom looked over to the doctor, who was watching them fearfully. “When the time comes, feel free to get a boot in!”
He hadn’t finished his sentence when they heard muffled voices in the stairwell behind the door. Someone was approaching with rapid steps. Within seconds the push bar began to rattle. The metallic clank of a weapon making contact with it told Tom the rebel’s rifle was slung.
‘Good,’ Tom thought. The man would come through with empty hands.
The door flung open, the first rebel through it immediately blinded by the glare of the afternoon sun. He shielded his eyes and was taken down before he could open them again. His jaw connected with a massive blow from Tom’s fist, sending him straight to the floor and his weapon off his shoulder.
The UZI hit the concrete and discharged with a deafening bang. The ricochet sang as it zipped around walls and bounced off metal. The two ducked and covered their heads.
Bang. Another round. Tom looked over just in time to see Emile’s eyes rolling back in his head. His body fell forward. He made no sound as he hit the floor. He breathed out in a slight gargle, and then he lay still. Tom looked on in horror. The second shot had come from somewhere else, somewhere behind the first man through the door.
“Shit!” Tom hissed and spun back towards the stairwell.
Then everything went dark, and searing pain pierced his skull. Somewhere in the recesses of his failing mind, he could hear himself fall and hit something. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 8
The interior of B1 was pure white, its thick rubberized walls and air-lock protected labs of modular construction, adding to the atmosphere of a spaceship, rather than the research station it obviously was. A U-shape of desks with computers stood in the centre of the main area. Open folders covered most surfaces. Separated by double-hinged
doors opening in both directions, four corridors branched out from its centre.
As it turned out, B1 wasn’t nearly as cavernous as Tom had suspected, and it did not take long at all to inspect it in full.
One wing was reserved for staff quarters. There were four rooms in total. Each of the Spartan, hermetically sealable chambers was labelled with the occupant’s name. Going by the tags, all of the staff residing on this level were specialist MDs.
A sign in the next wing mentioned recreational facilities. Consisting of a tiny TV, a small library, and a card table, with its scarce furnishings all in clinical white, however, it felt more depressing than recreational.
‘Not exactly the Hilton.’ Tom couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could bear to spend any length of time here.
The third corridor led to a kitchen area, complete with stovetop, microwave, a kitchen island, and a large dining table. He took a curious peek into the white kitchen cabinets and found stacks of rations. MREs, Meals-Ready-To-Eat, the kind the military used on deployment. The only thing remotely homely was a coffeemaker, which sat next to a number of mugs imprinted with the usual jokes and bumper sticker slogans. One read, ‘The truth is out there.’
Tom chortled at the irony.
The forth wing was designated to house a small number of research rooms, mini-labs with vials, microscopes, and volumes and volumes of files covering most walls, bar the occasional lab fridge where liquids and Petri dishes were glowing behind glass doors in the soft neon-lit interior.
The doctor and Tom flicked through some of the open files on the desks. Most contained more or less meaningless memos about maintenance and outdated rotation schedules. There was little of substance, let alone use to them in their search for answers. They moved on to the folders lined up atop the cabinets along the walls.
Here, too, much of what they found revolved around basic research into the surrounding flora and fauna. There was even a three-part volume on fungi and another one on the lifecycle of local parasites. Overall though, nothing that one wasn’t likely to find in a Google™ search. B1, they decided, had nothing more to offer. They returned to the elevator, which to their relief was still operational, and within seconds, they found themselves descending towards B2.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 8
