by Zack Archer
“Tilapia,” Lucy said. “We breed our own fish believe it or not. Their waste helps fertilize the vegetables.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I helped set some of it up.”
“You?”
She smirked. “I wasn’t always the hive-kicker who stands before you, Nick. Once upon a time, I helped pick people up instead of putting them down.”
“What did you do?”
“I was a consultant on loan from the British government to the Peace Corps.”
“Get out.”
“I’m serious,” she replied. “I worked on forestry projects in sub-Saharan Africa. The whole thing ended up being arse over elbows, but basically my specialty was capturing revenue from a carbon storing project in order to plow the money back into landscape restoration and reforestation projects.”
“So…you were a do-gooder.”
She smiled. “I’ll have you know I was a certified water-walker.”
Lucy moved toward one of the tables filled with vegetables. She floated a dial attached to what looked like a thermostat and a motor powered up somewhere overhead. A huge plume of mist jetted out of a large vent in the roof, filling the room with warm, wet air. It felt like we were in the middle of a sauna as sweat roped my forehead.
I watched her bend over to inspect some of the plants and had to tear my eyes away from her body, which was shaped like an hourglass with plenty of sand in all the right places if you know what I mean. Her pants hiked up to expose her diamond-shaped calves. Calves are a very underrated body part on a lady, in my book.
“How did a water-walker become such a badass?” I asked.
“When a single lady finds herself in a country at the edge of several conflict zones, she generally does one of two things: leaves, or learns to adapt. On several of my projects I was shadowed by Special Forces types. I learned some things.” She picked up a pair of tiny snips from a shelf under a huge industrial fan, and began pruning a fruit bush.
There was a burst of static and Slade whispered to me, “Can I just say, that English lady sure knows how to wield those snips. Who knew gardening could be so goddamn sexy?”
I powered him down and smiled at Lucy.
“I can tell you’ve learned a lot.”
“Now you know my backstory. What about you?” she asked, snipping some brown shoots from the bush.
“I’m just an average, off-the-rack white dude who slept through the apocalypse.”
It suddenly felt very warm in the room. She drew close to me, twirling the snips. “I call bullshit on that. You wouldn’t be here talking to me if you were average, Mister Dekko.”
“I keep telling you. It’s Nick.”
“What was the Madam Secretary like?”
“You knew her?” I asked.
“Of her. Not many people pissed her off and lived to tell about it, but you did.”
“I’m that good, Lucy,” I replied with a sly smile.
“I’ll bet you had a little help from those dishy ladies of yours.”
I nodded.
“I think you might have done rather well in the Peace Corps, Nick.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re able to keep the peace between a half-dozen women.”
“We’re good friends.”
“Of that, I have little doubt...”
“I’d like to be your friend.”
She laughed. “I’ve got so many female friends. Why on Earth would I want to spoil it by bringing in a man?”
“Because we can do things the others can’t.”
Her smile faded, and something flickered in her eyes. Call it hunger or sexual desire, but there was a definite spark. She bit her lip and set the snips down. Then she studied the cannons on my hands and helped me to unfasten them. It took some time, but Lucy was very patient.
We didn’t say anything the entire time—but then she tilted her head, and I slipped my arm around her waist. She grabbed my hand. I tensed, then she lowered it to her ass. I squeezed it and she moaned, and then our lips met.
Our tongues exchanged pleasantries as we kissed and then she pushed me back against one of the benches. My hand slid to her taut stomach, then back to her ass. She grabbed the bulge in my pants and squeezed, and I yelped. She smiled, swatted me in the face and then unzipped my pants as the mist swirled all around us.
As she tugged my jeans off my hips, I reached down and squeezed her breasts. Pants down, my engorged organ sprang free and she went to work, mouth open, engulfing me to the root. Her oral technique was exquisite, and I ran my hand down her back as she went to work on me.
She rocked back and forth, almost violently, and I brushed back her hair as she stood. I helped her out of her clothes and admired the full-breasted, broad-hipped beauty. Then I reached down, cupped her ass, and lifted her.
I carried her over to a nearby bench. She turned around and grabbed the edges of the bench then reached back and grabbed my dick. Her magnificent ass parted, and she guided my cock toward her pink lips as I rocked into the moist crease of her womanhood.
We began moving as one, rocking back and forth. She told me to grab her arms and hold them back and I did, pounding her from behind as she squealed with delight.
“I’ll bet you did this to the Madam Secretary, didn’t you?” she shouted. “I’ll bet you stuffed her left and right.”
“I never got the chance!”
She laughed. I turned her over and picked her up. Unleashing my pent-up lust, I began stroking her at a feverish pace, my balls tightening as she wrapped her arms around my neck and ran her sharp nails down my back. Soon, we were glistening with sweat, the only sound the slapping of skin and our moans as we neared climax.
“Make it last, Nick,” she whispered into my ear. “Make it fucking last.”
We moved over to a nearby bench and I eased down onto it while Lucy straddled me. She rode me like a bronco as I gentled my thrusts and sucked on her erect nipples, the steam swirling, making it impossible to see anything but her.
A powerful sensation welled up in my feet and gripped the underside of my shaft. I groaned. Lucy smiled, realizing I was about to explode.
In one athletic movement, she dismounted me, gripped my knob and began pumping it furiously as I unleashed my load all over her glorious tits. She pumped me dry and then leaned down and bit my lip.
That’s when it happened. Something thumped overhead and then crashed to the ground somewhere out in the middle of the room. I squinted, tracing the sound up to the large vent in the roof. Another crashing sound echoed and something, a large, pale object, flew out of the vent. This happened two more times.
What the hell?
I could barely see anything because of the mist, but then I heard it—a moan, followed by the clucking of tongues. And then a figure lurched up from where it landed, silhouetted in the mist. All I saw was the thing’s cadaverous grin as it spotted us and pointed. The zombies had found a way into the building.
9
“They’re inside the walls!” Lucy shouted.
We shrugged on our clothes and I refastened my cannons. Lucy grabbed the tiny snips and hurled them at the first zombie. The tip of the snips slammed into the zombie’s eye, popping it like a squashed grape and unleashing a spurt of black gore. The zombie stumbled back and Lucy went to work.
She sprinted forward, flipped a switch, and grabbed the huge industrial fan I’d seen before. It whirred to life as she yanked the front casing off and detached the back casing from its base so that it was connected only to a thick length of metal conduit.
The Woken charged at us, and Lucy greeted them with those whirling blades. Blood and viscera flew in every direction as we ducked, the blades turning the zombie faces to something that resembled raw meat. The first zombie dropped to the floor, his brain shredded, but the others were quickly bound up in the blades, still alive as the fan broke apart.
Lucy grabbed her two-bladed staff and I opened fire. I willed a pair of metal
darts into the skull of the first zombie and Lucy finished off the other one with a quick swipe of her staff.
“Where’s there’s one, there’s more!” she said, running to the far wall. She reached out to press a red alarm button, but somebody beat her to it, because sirens sounded in every direction.
Lucy and I tore out of the greenhouse. I powered Slade back up along the way. We ran up into the main corridor, which was filled by frantic-eyed base workers. Deb, Lexie, Raven, and the others were there, clad in body armor with their weapons at the ready, looking certifiably badass.
“What’s going on?”
“Whatever it is, it ain’t good,” Deb replied.
We fell in with the base workers and marched steadily up a pathway where Sharla Frost was visible. She waved at us while clutching a computer tablet.
“Remember how I said before that Site R would be abandoned in seven hours and forty-two minutes?” Sharla said.
“Yes.”
“It appears that I was overly optimistic. The infected were apparently unwilling to wait that long.” She flipped the tablet around and swiped a finger across the screen. Images appeared, what looked like real-time shots taken from the outside. The zombies had knocked down the perimeter fencing and were surging toward the main doors. “Several of the generators went out and the fences failed,” she added.
Deb pointed up in the general direction of the main doors we’d originally entered. “There’s no way they can’t get through Portal A.”
“They’re already in,” I said.
“What?”
Lucy pointed back in the direction we’d come from. “Four of them fell through the ductwork into the greenhouse.”
“Then we’ve less time than we thought,” Sharla replied.
Howls sounded in the distance. I looked up to see several of the security guards firing into the darkness. They were quickly overwhelmed by a pack of zombies. Sharla motioned for us to follow her through a door marked Engineering. We squeezed into a narrow corridor.
“How long do we have?” I asked.
“Twelve minutes, maybe less.”
“How are we getting to the helicopter?”
Sharla stopped and looked back. “Our original plan won’t work, now. Luckily, we’ve got a Plan B.”
“What does it involve?”
“Meeting the Vice President of the United States of America.”
I froze. “Isn’t the Vice President dead?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, she’s just…dead-ish.”
We fled through the middle of Site R, following Sharla and Lucy. Sharla told us that we’d have transport ready and waiting for us but would have to run a gauntlet. We needed to speed through a road hidden in the belly of base and hope like hell that the zombies weren’t waiting for us outside. If and when we made it out, we’d have to drive a mile across the Site to link up with Bo and two other teams that would be waiting with three helicopters at a semi-secured rendezvous spot.
“You better have some kind of special vehicle ready to go if you hope to make that drive,” Raven said.
Sharla nodded. “We do.”
“Appropriately enough, it’s a limo called The Tomb,” Lucy offered.
A door swung open ahead of us and Lawless lumbered into view, assault rifle in hand, boombox and duffel bag at his feet.
“How is she?” Sharla asked.
“’Bout how she is every day,” Lawless replied.
“Pissed?”
“Yep, and hungry as all get-out.”
He gathered up his stuff and we followed him into a circular room splashed with tube lighting. There were two things in the room: an unusually bulky black limousine, and a woman chained to the floor.
Sharla Frost swept her hands out. “I’d like to introduce Langley Jane Jefferson, the fiftieth Vice President of the United States of America.”
“And that’s the VPs ride, The Tomb,” Lawless said, pointing at the limo.
We took in everything, circling the limo and Langley Jane Jefferson, who’d definitely seen better days. Not only was the VP missing most of the fingers on her left hand, but her pantsuit was ripped at the knees, pockmarked by bullet holes and God knows what else, and the back of it had been spray-painted with blood and body fluids. She wore a pearl necklace around her throat which was down to two pearls, and a ring of caked gore haloed her head.
Upon spotting us, she toed at the ground like a bull and clawed at the air.
I raised a hand. “Madam Vice President, it’s a real pleasure—”
The VP lunged at me, and I jumped.
“She’s not much for conversation,” Lawless said.
An explosion boomed overhead, and the walls shook. “What’s the plan?”
Lawless pointed at the limo. “We get inside big ugly and get the fuck out of here before we’re all eaten. How’s that sound?”
“Like the greatest plan ever,” Hollis replied.
Scarlett angled a thumb at the VP. “What about her? I mean, I didn’t vote for her ticket, but still…”
“Maybe Deb can talk to her,” Lexie said.
Lucy guffawed. “Let’s get serious, ladies.”
“She is being serious,” Deb said. “I’ve been known to communicate with some of them. Remember Ocho?” Deb sucked in a breath and approached the VP, who was straining at her chain, biting at the air.
Deb dropped into a half-crouch and Lawless rolled his eyes, not believing what he was witnessing. But then Deb began clucking her tongue, just as she’d done with the zombie we’d nicknamed Ocho back in D.C., and the VP ceased all movement. For an instant, it appeared as though she’d understood Deb, that perhaps there’d been a breakthrough. Holy shit, it’s working, I thought.
Lexie clapped her hands and even Layla smiled.
“I’m pretty sure she said she means us no harm,” Deb said.
I smiled, and then the VP spat a wad of black bile at Deb. Not. Smart. Deb punched the VP in the jaw, breaking it with a wet, sickening crunch.
“So, that could’ve gone better,” I said.
“Typical politician,” Lexie said as the VP howled in anger. “Lying her ass off.”
Something thudded against the door we’d entered through. There were shouts on the other side of it, followed by the sound of hands slapping against the metal.
“THEY’RE HERE!” Hollis shouted.
We piled into the limousine. Lawless was behind the wheel, I was riding shotgun, and the ladies were in the back.
“Putting us in the back?” Hollis barked. “This is kinda sexist.”
Lawless adjusted the rearview mirror. “Would you prefer to drive through the zombies, ma’am? Hell, there are probably only eight or nine thousand of ‘em between here and the helicopters.”
Recognition washed over Hollis. She forced a smile. “No, I’m good.”
Lawless fired up the Cadillac limousine as I took a mental inventory of the interior, noting how unusual the machine was. For starters, the windshield and other windows had extraordinary glass, what Lawless said was more than five inches thick. He also claimed the ride had tires that were incapable of going flat, a completely sealed interior to protect against chemical attacks, night-vision capabilities, tear gas cannons, rocket-propelled grenades mounted above the headlights, onboard oxygen tanks, an armored fuel tank, and a row of pump-action shotguns in the back that the ladies handed out. Lawless toed the gas pedal and the six-hundred horses under the hood rumbled to life.
“What do we do about her?” I asked, pointing at the VP.
Lawless opened his door and shot the chain, freeing her. The VP immediately threw herself against the limo as the door into the space burst open and in rushed several dozen ghouls.
“Hold on!” Lawless shouted. He pressed a button on the dashboard and the far wall powered up. He gunned the engine and the limo shot forward, accelerating through the opening. The machine’s night-vision allowed us to see the road ahead without having to snap on the headlights. The road, a
raised strip of blacktop, was flat and straight for several hundred feet and then rose to a sharp incline.
Lawless slapped the steering wheel. “Due to the weight of this puppy, the fastest we can go is sixty miles per hour.”
We hit the incline and churned forward. Lawless tapped another button on the dashboard as a HUD appeared on the interior of the windshield. It contained an image of what looked like a gate at the top of the incline. He reached over and circled his finger on the HUD as the gate began opening.
“Get frosty,” he said.
The limo shot through the gate and immediately slammed into a pack of zombies.
“HOLD ON!” Lawless screamed.
He armlocked the wheel as we plowed into the infected. Their rotting flesh was no match for the limo which steamrolled through them. Heads and torsos split apart, and black blood marinated the glass as Lawless flicked the windshield wipers.
Skidding across the mangled bodies, Lawless brought up a map on the HUD which revealed our present position and the location of the helicopters, which was a half mile away, down a one-lane road.
Slade was evidently hard at work, because a schematic filled my internal HUD as well, a map with a red line that traced the path we had to take.
“How’s it looking, Slade?”
“Check your HUD.”
I did and the path that Slade conjured up was filled with orange blinking dots.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Take a guess.”
“Bad guys?”
“Yes, sir,” Slade replied.
“How many?”
“A little less than twelve thousand, but only about three thousand are between us and the rendezvous spot.”
“Oh, is that all.”
Lawless swung the wheel and we drove down the one-lane road, picking up speed. We kept the headlights off in hopes that the zombies wouldn’t notice us. Fat chance. They ran toward the limo from either side of the road.
My gaze found Lawless’s. “How ‘bout some fireworks?”
