More flooded in. They backed away and continued shooting at the swarm. When they were in line with Dirk, he roared. The zombies ignored him. Werewolf was not on their menu and the sound of his roar, an irrelevant noise.
Dirk pounced on three at once, with his massive claws, he ripped off heads then turned and snarled at the rest. In a fury of wolf rage, he bit, ripped, shred and crushed skulls and brains. The men lowered their weapons in awe as Dirk snapped the last zombie’s neck, and then dug his claw through the skull and into its brain.
Dora gaped. Even with her experience in the ER, she’d never seen such gruesome carnage. The powerful werewolf stood over a dark pool of zombie blood, panting with deep menacing groans. He glanced in their direction and they held their breath. He narrowed his predatory eyes on her.
“Are you okay?”
She gave him an incredulous glance.
“Except for future hours of therapy for post-traumatic stress, I am.”
He shot her a fanged wolfish grin.
“Won’t be easy finding you a therapist, but I’ll sniff one out for you, babe.”
Dirk growled at the undead at his feet.
“I’m tired of watching you guys take the best monster title from us.”
Victorious he threw his head back and boomed a howl.
The men held their weapons ready, gaping at the monster.
“
My height is taking up too much space.
Tell them I’m shifting to my wolf form
.”
Dora aimed at the men. “Don’t get trigger happy. Zombies are the enemy, not wolves.”
Dirk shifted into his natural wolf form. Never had she seen such a beautiful mottled tawny reddish coat on a wolf. His eyes remained light blue but his gold specks more pronounced as a wolf. Roughly the size of an African lion, far bigger than a natural wolf. He sniffed the air.
“This is a better nose than my lycanthrope form. It will warn us long before we run into more ghouls.”
“Good, sort of a search and rescue dog. Oops I didn’t mean to think that.”
“No, you got that right. You just left off the attack-trained part.”
Mansfield continued to stare at wolf-Dirk and curled a slow smile. “Jaeger did mention the two forms but I never quite believed him.”
The wolf glanced at her. “
Tell Mansfield to hurry.”
She turned to the scientist. “Show us the way.”
Mansfield gave his daughter a final glance and stepped forward. “Follow me.”
“Wait! Let Dirk smell the area before you open other doors.”
Mansfield froze and then nodded. “Good idea.”
The long white corridor’s lights flickered on and off. Alarms continued to blare but more muted than earlier. Alarm laryngitis. Dirk walked alongside Mansfield, his nose low and his eyes narrowed. They made it to a door that read, Emergency Exit. This one required a retinal scan.
Mansfield glanced at Dirk, who gave him a slow obvious wolfish nod. He positioned his eye in front of the scanner and the door swished opened. “This leads directly to level zero.”
She attempted to sound calm but her high-octane adrenalin made her voice shaky, “So…no zombies?”
Mansfield shook his head as they entered. “There’s no way the intruder could have gotten into level zero and released them.”
She grasped his arm. “How do you know he didn’t unlock it with that pen thingy?”
He sighed. “Point taken. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
They cautiously walked down the winding metal staircase. Her hands trembled. Could she even shoot? She walked close behind Dirk. Nice to have an attack-trained wolf.
He wagged his tail and gave her a reassuring glance. “
This entire stairwell is clear. The only bad stench is Mansfield’s residual mothball stink.”
And here she thought it was only Mansfield’s breath that smelled bad.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to say that once we enter the last floor.”
They arrived and faced the door. Before Mansfield let the camera scan his eye to the second entry, he gestured for Dirk to check it out.
The wolf stood on his hind legs and sniffed the door. He stepped down and growled. Not a good sign.
“Tell them I need to shift to talk.”
He stepped toward them and snarled.
“It looks like he needs space, maybe he’s going to shift.”
Mansfield ordered. “Make room.” He turned to her. “How the hell do you know what he’s about to do?”
“Look. Isn’t it obvious?” The last thing she wanted to advertise to Mansfield was their secret communication.
The wolf shook his coat as if shaking off water and then whimpered as his bones began to crack and re-shape. In moments, Dirk crouched on the floor, again the muscular hunk. He stood and doctor or not, she shied away. She turned off the Dirk channel. No need to convey her thoughts on his god-like naked body.
He pressed his ear to the door and shook his head. “How many of those fucking ghouls do you guys have down here? I’m picking up dozens.”
Mansfield’s lower lip twitched. “We brought in twenty for experimental purposes but we brought in forty more that we call
of national importance
. Congressmen, senators, a few governors, Wall Street tycoons and high-ranking military personnel. All bitten.”
Dora rolled her eyes. “Damn, don’t tell me we need to fight off zombie politicians. I heard they’re the worst.” She twisted a lip. “Then again, most were already zombie sucking-types way before Z-phage.” She wrinkled her nose. “These guys really stink.”
“I had high priority orders to cure them. We tried your blood serum but it didn’t work. We hoped the wolfman’s blood might offer a cure or maybe even reverse it.”
“That would have been a waste of my blood,” Dirk quipped. “I don’t give a damn about human politics. I don’t even vote. Hell, I don’t even have a social security number.”
Mansfield exhaled a heavy sigh. “This brings me to my next point. I’m not sure how I’ll explain to the higher-ups that we killed zombies ordered to be kept…alive.”
She arched her brows. “Are you saying we can’t kill them?”
Dirk glowered at him. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I doubt the
higher-ups
are even alive.”
One of the soldiers stepped forward. “Sir, he has a point. We haven’t heard from headquarters for over a week.”
Mansfield snapped at him, “I’m in command, and you’ll obey or you’ll be brought up for court martial.”
Dirk cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m the alpha, and I say we impeach all zombies.”
Mansfield gritted his teeth. “All I’m saying is let’s shoot their kneecaps and then shove them back into their holding pen, then we can come back when we find a cure. Damn things don’t seem to starve.”
Dora bit her lower lip. “There’s no hope. The brain scans show damage beyond repair. You did the right thing with your daughter. How can you even think you’re helping these once successful people? We’d be lucky to reverse only partial sections of their brain, but they’ll remain in a vegetative state at best.”
He glared at her. “They are symbols. Survivors will want to know that not all is lost.”
She laughed with an angry edge. “Symbols of what? Like keeping Dirk and I as lab rats without any consideration to our civil rights?”
“I kept you safe. Both of you.”
Dirk growled. “Safe?” He loomed over Mansfield. “I was sold to you by my worst enemy and collared with the gleipnir. For that and how you experimented on Dora I ought to kill you.”
Dora touched Dirk’s arm. “Once he shows us the way out, we’ll bid him farewell.”
Dirk turned to the men. “Our goal is escape. Shoot to kill. It’s not like we’re assassins. They’re not people. Not anymore. They are flesh-eating zombies. If they knew what they were, they would beg for a bullet to the head.”
Mansfield hissed, “At least keep Dr. Adler safe.”
“Finally we agree on something.” He walked in front to the door. “I’m going to go into my full werewolf form again. Which way?”
Mansfield approached the scanner. “After we get in, we’ll cross a bridge above the pens. We’ll take the lift down but it’s a cage and the zombies will see us coming.”
“As long as it’s in working order,” Dora said.
“We will test it first,” said Mansfield. “Once we step off, we’ll dash toward the right. I keep an office there. Inside, I made a trapdoor behind the bookcase that opens up to a tunnel. We run for a mile until we reach the cave exit. I keep a fully stocked SUV.”
Dirk turned to the security guard. “How many grenades do you have?”
Mansfield glared at him. “None.”
The youngest-looking soldier took out a grenade. “Only one, sir.”
“Good, we’ll take out a few after we get off the elevator. But wait for Dora’s signal.” He smiled at her.
“I’ll let you know when, babe.”
Mansfield’s pinched expression showed his disapproval. He opened his mouth to protest but then pressed his lips tight.
Dirk shifted back to his werewolf form and stepped away from the door while Mansfield stood in front of the retinal scanner.
The doors woofed open.
Dirk led the way across the steel bridge. Below the zombies looked up and raged their repetitive moans. They lifted their arms, desperately clawing, while some climbed on top of one another to reach them. He growled but they didn’t flinch or look his way, their attention drawn to the humans. He turned to check on Dora.
Her eyes widened. “It’s Senator Glenda Kelso.” The woman wearing a tattered gray pantsuit with a bloodstained lavender silk shirt responded not to her name, but to the voice of her meal. The zombie politician tilted her head and shouted a plaintive moan. The former senator gestured by reaching with her hand and then moved it back and forth to her bloody mouth. Kind of like a demented infant wanting more rice cereal. She shook her head. “Sorry, sign says ‘Don’t Feed the Zombies.’”
Dirk emitted a half chortle werewolf chuckle.
“Funny, babe.”
She gave him a pointed look and returned her stare to the once powerful politician literally “dressed to kill.”
Mansfield looked down. “Were you a conservative?”
Dora shook her head. “No, I was an independent. But she was always on the news and on the bill to run for president representing the End of Days Party.”
Their conversation drove the zombies mad as they sniffed and barked stuttering moans.
Dirk called to her.
“Dora, come.”
He patted his hand on his leg.
“Next to me.”
Excuse me? You might be of the lupine persuasion but I’m not.
Nonetheless, like an obedience-trained poodle, she joined him. Dora certainly felt like a toy breed next to the big nasty-looking giant werewolf. She shivered.
“There’s so many of them.”
“I could throw Mansfield into the mix, while the rest of you run.”
“That’s a thought, but we do need him to unlock his office.”
“Nah, I’ll knock the door down.”
Mansfield opened the lift. “Dirk, will you fit?”
Dirk understood and nodded.
“I’ll leap down.”
She petted his furred abs
. “Be careful, I’m getting kind of fond of you.”
“The feeling is…”
He suddenly growled and twisted. A thick syringe with wolfsbane stabbed him deep into his thigh.
Mansfield dashed away and in the process shoved the young soldier who held the grenade over the rail, landing on his back.
A blood-curdling scream followed as the swarm gathered and devoured him alive.
Dora screamed. “No!” She fell to her knees and threw up. Mercifully, the soldier pulled the grenade pin. The metal bridge shook and they held on.
The older soldier spat. “What the fuck? You just killed Jackson!”
Dirk staggered toward Mansfield. His security guard unleashed machine gunfire at the maddened werewolf. He howled in pain but continued to move forward, his eyes shooting glowing daggers at Mansfield. The scientist backed and fired his weapon.
Dirk collapsed with a horrendous roaring growl while still attempting to crawl toward Mansfield. He reached one claw toward Mansfield, before panting into a tranquilized daze.
Everyone stilled, staring at the downed werewolf. Dirk snapped a growl as they watched in horror and stepped back. With rippling arm muscles, he heaved his body up but as he rose to his full height, he whimpered and with a thunderous thump crashed onto the walkway.
Holding her roiling stomach, Dora reached Dirk. His bullet wounds were already healing but the wolfsbane knocked him unconscious. She opened his eyelid. “Shit.” She shook him. “Dirk, get up.”
Mansfield grabbed her weapon and then yanked her by the elbow. “I’m in command. Now let’s move. Otherwise Jackson’s sacrifice is for naught.”
She flinched from his hold. “You used your own man as if he was a cow, feeding him to the piranhas!”
Mansfield drew her in and pressed the cold muzzle to her cheek. “Shut up.”
She stiffened and let him drag her to the exit.
He checked the lift and then shoved her in. The last remaining men looked at one another and then entered. The caged lift landed hard, perhaps damaged from the earlier explosion and then the door didn’t open. Trapped in a shark cage and they were the chum attracting the zombies. The older soldier manually opened it and they ran out, just as the zombies responded with a raging snarl, echoing their ravenous hunger.
“Hurry!” ordered Mansfield.
“We can’t leave Dirk!” Dora turned to see the slumped body of the unconscious werewolf on the bridge. Odd that unlike Hollywood horror flicks, he didn’t revert to a human once knocked out. At least the zombies would ignore him.
Mansfield poked the gun to her back.
“Move!”Sandwiched between Mansfield and the security guard they forced her to leave. The soldier in the back shot at approaching zombies as they moved.