Escape From Metro City

by Mandel, Richard

  "Mind if I tag along?" came a voice from the far end of the tent. Ryan, his aide, and what few soldiers remained with him looked down to see a civilian in a rumpled dark suit with tie still sitting at the table. He was a rather bland-looking man save for the hint of a bemused smile on his face.

  Ryan snorted. "I suppose, Mr. Dahl. I'm sure Pandora's just as interested in this news as we are."

  "Thank you," the man said somewhat smugly. He stood up, neatly put his chair back into place, and then began to walk towards them. "I can assure you of Mr. Nye's approval on this."

  "I'm sure you can, Mr Dahl," Ryan growled at him. He abruptly turned on his heel and left the tent before Ryan could reach him, the others quickly following after him. He did that so Dahl would be unable to hear Ryan contemptuously mutter under his breath the phrase butt kisser. Nevertheless, the bemused smile on the face of Carlton Dahl, Pandora's official on-site representative to General Ryan, grew even bigger as he picked up his pace and quickly followed after the general and his men.

  Lisa and Mercy found the door to the station chief's office unlocked. At Lisa's signal, Mercy quickly yanked open the door from the side while Lisa covered the doorway with her MAC-11. Nothing leapt out to attack her from within. Instead, she was greeted by total silence and the sight of a semi-darkened room beyond the doorway, along with a now-familiar incredible odor. It was the same odor she had smelled in the back storage room of Southwest Sporting Goods, in the waiting area by the first floor nurse's station at Metro City Medical Center, and in the home of her aunt and uncle when she had found the savagely mutilated remains of both her younger brother Randy and his cousin. It was the smell of an open-air slaughterhouse on a hot summer's day. She walked slowly forward until she was standing in the doorway. She looked around inside for several seconds, the barrel of her weapon moving with her eyes. She then turned and looked back at Mercy, who by now had come around the door and was standing behind her, brandishing her assault rifle and her nose twitching at the smell. "Looks clear," Lisa said. "Let's go in."

  Lisa had only taken three steps into the office when the lights suddenly came on. She almost jumped, then looked back at Mercy. One of the researcher's hands was on the light switch. "Sorry," Mercy said. "Force of habit."

  "It's okay," Lisa replied with a nervous chuckle. "You startled me, that's all." She started to say more, but suddenly realized that Mercy was no longer looking at her. She was looking beyond her with an expression on her face that managed to combine both horror and utter revulsion. Lisa turned to see for herself what Mercy saw, and sucked in her breath involuntarily.

  There was a body lying on the floor in the middle of the room, and also in the middle of a rather large irregular splotch of blood on the room's carpet. It was the remains of a portly man, probably in middle age, who had at one time been wearing a policeman's uniform. Had been was the operative phrase here. It was quite obvious that the zombies had been here long before the two still human women had arrived, judging from the state of the remains. Lisa felt her stomach begin to churn and had to steel herself against that horrific sight.

  "You never really get used to it, you know," Lisa heard Mercy say quietly behind her. She turned to look at her, and saw that Mercy's face was set just as hard as her own must have been. "It's like what happens with soldiers during a war. They see so much of death and killing, and dead bodies everywhere, that they get numb to it. Even for them, though, they never really get used to it. That's part of the reason why many suffer from PTSD afterwards. Their minds have to shut it out at the time, but it comes back to haunt them later in their nightmares." She gave a low chuckle. "I know I haven't gotten used to it. I don't think I ever will."

  Lisa nodded. "Let's just get what we need and get out of here," she said in a low and slightly shaky voice.

  The pair quickly moved to the desk in the room and began to search it, Mercy the left side drawers and Lisa the center and right. It took just under a minute for Lisa to find two sets of keys on two key rings in the uppermost right side drawer. One was a normal key ring, and the other was a set of oversized and heavy keys, resembling large skeleton keys and of the kind used for cell doors. She held them up for Mercy to see. "It'll bet these are what we want."

  "And the other?"

  "Station keys, most likely. We'll take them too. We might need them for the Armory," Lisa said, as she pocketed both sets of keys.

  Mercy started to say something in reply, but she was interrupted by another sound in the room, It was a rustling sound, very similar to the one Lisa had heard in the hospital parking lot some hours before, but this time it was mixed in with a peculiar slurching and slurping sound, very similar to what one might hear if a person were wading though jelly. The ruined body on the floor began to rise, much to the horror of both women. The motion was also accompanied by exaggerated raspy breathing and an almost animal-like guttural groan. They didn't wait to see what would happen next. Even as it came to its feet on its ruined legs and began to turn towards them, both women were already running for the door. They were out of there and running down the hall before the thing could even take its first step.

  "And that's the situation, sir," Cy said into his microphone.

  There was a crackle of static, and then Cy heard the response of General Ryan over the radio room speakers. "Roger that. Sorry to tell you this, but we can't land a chopper at your location due to those damn crows."

  "Crows, sir?"

  "Yeah. They go after our bird every time we get close. Damnedest thing my pilots have ever seen."

  Cy grimaced, remembering their own sightings of both the crows and the evil-looking raven that had been leading them during their adventure. "Probably has something to do with the Outbreak, sir," he offered.

  "Probably. Do you have any evac plans of your own?"

  "We've already secured alternate transportation, sir," Cy responded. "It's an MCPD Dodge Royal Monaco squad car, unit number 12. I'll have Lisa turn on the lights just to make sure you find us. We'll be heading north on Highway 9 once we clear the beltway, sir, since that's the quickest way out of town to the quarantine line and you from our location."

  There was a pause on the other end before the response. "That's going to take you right past the Pandora complex, Corporal."

  "Yes, sir," Cy responded, "and we talked about that. Mercy, I mean Ms. Parks, believes that since that was the origin point of the Outbreak, then the virus may have already burned itself out in there. On top of which it's about the only option out of town we've got from where we're currently located, sir. The city beltway is too jammed up for us to reach any other way out of Metro City in a reasonable amount of time, and that'll give the zombies plenty of time to find us and gang up on us again, sir."

  "Point well taken, Corporal. All right. We'll go ahead with your plan, and I've sent for some better air support to help us out. As soon as they get here, I'll send out one of those units to intercept you on the way and provide you air cover until you get within range of us. Once that happens, we'll come through the quarantine line and pick you up."

  Cy paused as he heard a door bang open and then the sound of feet running down the hall. That was probably Lisa and Mercy, he guessed, and they must have found more in the chief's office than just the keys they needed. He decided it was time to wrap up his radio call. He kept one eye on the door to the radio room as he spoke again. "Sir, one more question, if I may?"

  "Go ahead."

  "What does the chopper you've got watching us say it's like out there?"

  "Well aside from all those damn crows on the roof of your building and everywhere else, those zombies are bunching up again behind that fire barricade of yours. It's burned down quite a bit, and they'll probably try to breach it before long. Also, more are starting to come up around the other side of the block. I'd say you're going to have visitors fairly soon."

  "Shit!" Cy exclaimed, then quickly added, "Sorry, sir."

  "That's all right, son. I understand. Get what you gu
ys need in there, rescue that other survivor, and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. We'll be waiting for you north of town, and I'll get you that air cover as soon as I can. Ryan, out."

  "Yes, sir. Rappalo, out."

  Cy set down the mike, and then put both hands on his shotgun. He hadn't heard anything else in the hallway since Lisa and Mercy had left, but he had the strangest feeling that something was out there. There was also the fact that he had never heard that distant door close, but that might have been due to the hydraulic hinges fitted on most of the doors in the building. He had no way to prove something was there, no way to see or sense it, and yet he knew it was there. He carefully got up from the radio console and then walked to the radio room door, holding his shotgun at the ready. The only sounds to be heard were the fall of his own feet on the carpeted floor and the loud beating of his own heart. He stopped in front of the door and listened, shotgun at the ready. Still nothing. Not a sound. He decided to risk it. Trading his shotgun for his .45 ACP, he held the heavy caliber pistol in his right hand while he opened the door with his left.

  Framed in the open doorway before Cy was an irregular shape indicating the remains of a man. It had at one time been a somewhat heavyset police officer of middle age, but not anymore. Both the virus and the zombies had ravaged the body, and it was a miracle that what remained of it was even mobile and sentient. It locked its one remaining eye on the human before it, let out a guttural growling half-roar, and began to both raise its arms and lurch forward towards Cy. It suddenly arched and flew backwards as the roar of a .45 ACP filled the air, and what remained of its head was blown off and both splattered and smacked into the far wall. Cy didn't wait. He barreled his way into and past the headless body as it fell, racing down the hallway and towards the stairwell so he could rejoin his friends. Privately he hoped that they were all right, as he made the stairwell door, yanked it open, and darted inside.

  The black limousine sat some distance away from the Army vehicles. It was parked in such a manner so that it could pull straight out and onto the highway for an easy departure. It had taken some trouble getting it parked that way, given the overwhelming Army presence behind the quarantine line, but allowances had been made in the end. After all, its chief passenger was a very important man, with insider connections high in both political and military circles. It would not be good for one's future career to inconvenience him too much.

  That important person was currently seated in the back of the limo and engaging in a conversation with one of his subordinates on his car phone. These were the direct ancestors of modern cell phones. They were essentially the same thing, but big and bulky due to the limitations of 1980s-era analog and first-generation digital electronics. Car phones were also very expensive in this era, and were normally limited in ownership to those businesses that needed them and those individuals who could afford them. Brian Desmond Nye, the current chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors for Pandora Corporation, was such a person. He was a thin but spry looking man in his early sixties, with a head that was still full of silver-grey hair. He also had the coldest cobalt blue eyes most folks had ever seen. They matched his normally cold demeanor and frigid personality. He also had a penchant for wearing white three-piece double-breasted suits with black shirts and matching white shoes, and he was wearing such today as he sat in his limo and talked on his car phone.

  "So the Army has made contact with survivors of both the Outbreak and the rescue convoy?" Nye said, his voice as level and chilly as any given side of a block of freshly cut ice.

  "Yes sir," came the disembodied voice of Carlton Dahl over the car phone. "One soldier and two civilians, including one of our own. Mercy Parks, one of our people from the hospital."

  "Interesting," Nye replied. He looked at the man sitting with him in the back of the limo. "Mr. Voormand?"

  Piter de Voormand was a Dutchman and a naturalized American citizen, who had used his considerable skills to work his way up the corporate ladder at Pandora and into the important position of being Mr. Nye's chief personal aide. Corporate hatchetman might have been a better term to describe how he had done that, and how he continued to prove both his talents and personal loyalty to Nye on a regular basis. Unlike Nye, he wore a two-piece suit that was a rich shade of sable, his shirt was white, and he had sandy blond hair touched with grey. He too had blue eyes, although his were of a more friendly shade and had green highlights around their corneas. "Mercy Parks," Voormand responded. "Excellent researcher. She was one of our top liason people at Metro City Medical Center. Engaged to be married to John Hartman, another of our top researchers there. She was also among those who contacted us requesting more counteragent when the Outbreak first became known, as she and her fellow staff had used what little they had to save themselves. We refused, of course. After that we lost contact with her, until now that is."

  "I see," Nye said, nodding in agreement as he did.

  "It will be interesting to hear what she has to share, provided the Army returns her to us," de Voormand continued.

  "That's going to be a problem, sir," Dahl said on the phone. "She's appealed to them for protection. Says one of the people who's with them is naturally immune to the enhanced U-virus."

  "Naturally immune?" One of Nye's eyebrows had gone up at the news. "Which one?"

  "I believe you know her, sir," replied the disembodied voice. "Lisa Stanridge, the stock car racer."

  Both of Nye's eyebrows went up at the same time as a look of surprise filled the face of Piter de Voormand. "She survived?" de Voormand said incredulously. "The woman who beat our own racing team for the Bellville Cup?! And she's immune?! How is that possible? Besides, word had it she had died with everyone else at the track outside of town."

  "It seems she got away," Nye said calmly.

  "Well," de Voormand mused, "her father is a full blood Cherokee Indian well versed in the old ways of his people, according to her published bio. She also has an uncle who's a Vietnam vet and is something of a survivalist." He was now looking rather thoughtful. "Perhaps she was trained by both of them."

  "Perhaps." Nye's eyebrows had lowered, but there was an intensity to his expression that had not been there before. He spoke again into the car phone. "Who is her other companion?"

  "Corporal Cyrus Rappalo, U.S. Army. He was from the convoy. They're currently trying to rescue a Mexican illegal by the name of Raul Esteban who's locked up inside the MCPD substation."

  "What a waste of time," de Voormand muttered. "Damn illegals." He would have said more, but a cross glance from Nye silenced him.

  "Go on," Nye said into the cell phone's handset.

  "I've already done a check on Esteban, sir," Dahl said. "He's an itinerant laborer who got picked up by the MCPD last week because of his immigration status. He was supposed to be turned over to the INS later this week, but then the Outbreak happened."

  "I see." Nye furrowed his eyebrows and put the hand with the car phone's receiver under his chin. His aide de Voormand remained quiet. He knew his superior well enough by now to know that assuming a classic Thinker pose was a habit of his whenever he was concentrating, so he held his tongue until he was done. As for Nye, he remained frozen in this position for several seconds, then lifted his head and returned the receiver to his ear. "So Ms. Parks says Ms. Stanridge is naturally immune, and is apparently trying to keep her away from us. That's not very nice of her. What a bad employee." He paused to lick his lips, then looked at de Voormand and added, "Do we still have communications with our facility north of town?"

  "Computer modem access only, sir. No personnel have responded to our calls on our private lines from the first day of the Outbreak onward."

  "Understandable," Nye said. "Modem access will be enough, I think.," He gave de Voormand a firm look. "Do we have any ubermensch at the Metro City facility?"

  "Only one, sir," de Voormand responded immediately, "and it's one of our early modified prototypes. That's not our main ubermensch
research facility, as you know, sir. It was there only for viral testing purposes and such."

  "It will have to do," Nye said evenly. The coldness returned to both his face and his voice as he spoke again into the car phone. "That will be all. We will take care of it on our end. Thank you, Mr. Dahl. Keep me informed of any further developments."

  "Yes, sir." There was a loud klik! as Dahl broke the connection on his end.

  Nye reached forward and hung up the car phone, then leaned back and looked at his aide. "Is the necessary gear there for it to equip itself properly, if given orders to do so?"

  "No, sir," de Voormand replied, "but I'm sure it can scrounge up whatever it needs or find appropriate substitutes from the resources at hand. This ubermensch is one of our own, even if it is an early one, and those are designed to both adapt to limiting circumstances and to make the most of them."

  "Good," Nye said, nodding as he did. "You know what you need to do. Contact our computer center and have them issue the necessary orders via the modem line." He then handed his aide the car phone receiver.

  "Yes, sir." de Voormand took the receiver from Nye, leaned over the phone proper, and began to dial.

  Nye now reached up and rapped the polarized window that separated the back of the limo from the front with the knuckle of his right middle finger. The limo immediately started up, pulled out, and headed down the highway away from the quarantine line, and from what was left of Metro City. They had only been on the road for a minute or so when de Voormand finished his call. He hung the car phone's receiver up and then looked at Nye. "Your orders are being carried out, sir."

  "Very good."

  de Voormand hesitated, and then spoke again. "If I may ask, sir, where are we going?".

  Nye allowed himself a thin smile. "To establish our alibi, of course."

  "Yes, sir," de Voormand said. He too smiled. "And to prepare our story for the press, I presume."