LZR-1143: Redemption (25 page)

“Got it,” he said, swiveling the large weapon toward the front of the vehicle.

Kate joined me in the front row of seats as the vehicle slowed slightly, long enough for Eddy to evaluate the terrain.

The access to the water was a well-worn road lined with small homes and evergreen trees, down a steep hill to our left, then through a chain-link enclosed boat yard, and down a boat ramp to the water. Muddy tracks to and from the location indicated that it had been used in similar ways before.

In front of the narrow entrance to the boat ramp, a large herd of creatures was simply standing. They stared up at us, as if surprised that we had appeared.

“This normal?” I asked, slightly concerned. There were enough to cause a problem.

“No,” said Eddy, as Jorge answered as well. “There usually aren’t many at all. But there’s a big residential area up there, up that other hill from the marina—we always see our biggest groupings up there. We avoid it. There’s been a herd picking it over for a month. They never leave. Until today, that is.”

I unconsciously looked over my shoulder, back to the SeaTac camp.

It was as if they knew. As if they couldn’t stop themselves from merging with the others to converge on the fort.

We trundled forward, toward the large group. We had no choice.

Behind us, the smaller groups had joined together, shambling toward us and after us slowly, but with purpose. Our advantage was size and speed. Without the latter, the former meant nothing. We had to keep moving to stay alive.

“Rhodes,” I said, gesturing him forward. He whistled softly as the herd ahead surged forward.

“Got any explosives left?” I asked, staring as the moonlight highlighted the lifelessness of the hundreds of eyes ahead.

“Nope,” he said softly, pulling the magazine from his rifle and peering into the small metal space, checking his rounds.

The large machine moved slowly down the hill, passing several brightly painted colonials, their whitewashed window frames still bright in the moonlight. Out of place in a neighborhood street that seemed almost peaceful, a car was wrapped around a fire hydrant, its hood open and engine exposed to the night air. A fire truck was parked neatly on the other side of the road, a hose laying forgotten on the black roadway amidst a litter of helmets and a smear of effluent near the driver’s door.

I looked around worriedly, watching as the herd ahead grew closer.

Jorge threw down from his perch.

“We don’t have enough ammo for this many, man. We need to figure something out.”

My life was charmed.

No side streets.

No alleys.

No exits.

Just forward, or back.

Ky’s face was suddenly at my shoulder.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said shortly, and started speaking quickly.

I smiled, despite the low probability of success. It was worth a shot.

“Stop the bus,” I said loudly, tapping Eddy on the shoulder.

Jorge’s voice was frantic.

“My ass we’re stopping! Those things are a minute away!”

“It won’t take more than a minute. It’s our only shot.”

Rhodes leaned forward and caught Eddy’s eye. Cursing, the older man slammed on the brakes.

“You got ‘til those assholes are tapping on the back, then we’re leaving.”

I nodded and Ky moved to leave the vehicle with me. I looked over her shoulder and Kate shrugged.

What the hell. Might as well.

We jumped down and bolted across the street. Normally, it was a job for two men, but I picked up the slack with ease, dragging it across the street and slamming it through the windows of the broken car, positioning it firmly in the broken metal, facing the oncoming herd that was struggling up the crest of the steep hill merely fifty feet away. Rhodes stood near the door of the huge beast of a vehicle, carbine spitting erratically as he picked off the faster creatures.

Kate was standing near the truck, Ky’s eyes slightly wild but intent as she stared at the machine.

“I don’t know how this goddamned thing works,” Kate yelled, and Ky reached forward.

“This one, right?” Her hand flipped a switch and a small motor began to hum inside the fire engine.

“Then this one, ‘cause you need to adjust the pressure,” her eyes were glued to the panel now and Kate stepped back. I spared a glance over my shoulder and pulled the pistol loose from my hip.

“That should do it,” said Ky, frowning. The pumps were humming, the batteries in the large engine showing an impressive staying power.

“How the hell did you know how to do that?” asked Kate, voice incredulous.

“Video games,” she responded. “How you like me now, Mike?”

“Nothing’s happening,” I said, turning to the tide of undead cresting the hill. I moved toward them, feeling the pulse in my neck quicken. My veins were coursing with energy, and I nearly put the gun away and pulled the blade from its sheath.

“But it should be… oh, wait.”

Kate yelled, and I laughed loudly as a torrential surge of water shot from the fire hose we had positioned in the nearby car, the stream knocking corpses from their feet and making the steep slope too slippery for traction. Those that weren’t knocked from their rotting feet by the jet of water fell as bodies slammed into their legs, and as water flowed in a torrent down the hill.

Still laughing, I took the rear as Kate and Ky sprinted to the duck-mobile. Rhodes even spared a smile as we mounted the steps of the old machine and started forward, the crowd ahead now thinned, and scattered.

The fifty cal spat in short staccato bursts, taking larger clusters and firing only ahead, sparing ammo for only the larger groups. Heads and torsos crumbled in the onslaught of lead and steel, and I cringed at the noise as the heady weapon made its presence known.

Then we made our turn, trundling through the marina’s parking lot, and onto the ramp leading into the water. Stopping at the water’s edge, Eddy pulled several switches and we heard the whirring sounds of machinery in motion as the vehicle prepared to go from land to sea.

I looked out the front window, where the orange nose of the machine was nearly touching the water. The surface was like glass, the slight breeze stronger near the water, but the liquid seemingly untouched by the air’s movement. Eddy’s movements were quick, and Jorge swiveled above the driver’s seat, the modified turret moving haltingly as he spun around. Rhodes had joined Oscar at the back, watching the crowd turn from the hill to follow us, bodies still falling and stumbling over one another, clumsy but determined.

“Avast, maties. Let’s hit the open seas,” Eddy screamed, and plunged the bus-like relic of wars gone by into the lake, slowly steaming us away from the approaching undead.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Lake Union was a small part of a series of lakes and waterways that spread throughout the northern portion of Seattle, all connected underneath bridges and through neighborhoods. The lake itself stretched northward, and then doglegged to the east, underneath interstate 5, where it became Portage Bay. On the north shore of Portage Bay sat the enormous campus of the University of Washington. And on the southernmost point of the campus, almost on the shore of the Bay, sat the University of Washington Medical Center.

“You still staring at that?” Kate asked me, as the loud hum of the ancient diesel engine was interrupted occasionally by the sound of the hull slapping against the still water. A cold spray invaded the open-topped vehicle and moistened the laminated paper I held in my hand, the edges slightly dog-eared from being stowed in my pack.

“I know. I have it all in my head, but I know I won’t be able to whip this out while we’re moving, so I don’t want to have any doubts. It’s fairly complicated.”

She nodded, staring briefly at the complex sequence of numbers and codes before looking up and scanning the horizon.

“I wonder if the kids in the school ever suspected that there was a research and development laboratory under their feet. All those PETA protests and anti-war rallies.” She chuckled, leaning against the side of the boat as we hit a patch of waves coming around the bend toward the underpass beneath the bridge. “If they only knew that some of the most experimental blood and virology research in the world was being done twenty feet underneath their hospital.”

“Well, in their defense, it was mostly research. No actual pathogens, at least according to the folks in D.C.”

I was still staring at the paper, memorizing the access codes and routes for the hundredth time.

Before we left, we were given the codes and the maps under the assumption that the lab was locked down, and the campus overrun, causing some sort of auto-defense mechanism to activate. Such systems required override codes and a knowledge of the facility’s layout. So they gave us the little cheat sheets, like Cliff’s Notes for survival.

The span of the bridge across the narrows between the Union Lake and Portage Bay loomed ahead. Rhodes sat down heavily in one of the seats next to us, a heavy breath escaping his large body, errant hairs in his bushy beard puffing out briefly as he settled.

“What’s up?” asked Kate, as I finally started folding the map and putting it back into a cargo pocket on my leg.

He shrugged, effusive as always.

“Shamblers on the bridge,” he said shortly, nodding ahead.

The mechanical noise of Jorge turning the turret and a whispered warning from Eddy—despite the loud, rattling rumble of the old machine being plenty of notice to any undead in the area—were notice enough. I stared up as we approached.

The long span, three lanes wide on each side, arched above the water only half a mile away. A single boat rocked gently in the current, slamming repeatedly against the pillars stretching out of the water to meet the concrete roadway. On either side of the waterway, empty houses with dark—many broken—windows staring over the water.

Above it all, the bridge seemed to be moving, as heads and torsos of creatures pressed forward slowly. Eddy cut the engine to a lower gear, and we slowed as I watched the bodies start falling from the high span. With my improved eyesight, I knew why. I could see them looking.

At us.

Even as they surged forward, pressing against one another in a common drive to cross the water, thousands upon thousands of eyes were staring down at the water, where the noise of a sixty-year-old diesel engine was drawing their interest.

And now, it was drawing their bodies.

They pushed themselves, and one another, over the four-foot ledge, bodies cart wheeling over the metal railing in a curtain of flesh cascading into the waiting water. There were tens of thousands of them on the bridge, and the caravan stretched far to the north—past the neighborhoods behind, and up the gentle slope of the long hill on the northern edge of the water. I watched the interstate move with the press of bodies beyond the bridge’s terminus.

We continued to move forward, but slowed as Eddy realized the danger. Bodies falling from five stories up posed a danger, if not for the lethality of their teeth, then to the structural integrity of the odd vehicle we were riding.

Ky’s voice suddenly cut the somewhat stunned silence.

“Uh, guys,” she began, moving away from the sides of the machine.

“Shit,” said Jorge, swiveling his turret as he saw what she saw.

Of course.

The motherfuckers were not just land-based anymore.

They didn’t swim very well, but they were definitely in the water.

The funny thing about a corpse is that it floats much better than a living human body. Maybe it’s all the useless gas we emit as humans, disguised as speech or pontification, all coming out and puffing us up, forbidden from escaping the body so forced to turn us into fleshy little buoys.

I’m sure there’s some science explaining it.

But I’m not a scientist.

So I watched, confused, as the creatures that had already thrown themselves from the bridge started to surface, hands and feet thrashing awkwardly in the water, heads bobbing up and down, in and out of the dark water. Thousands fell, and hundreds resurfaced.

They were still clumsy, and uncoordinated.

But they were legion.

“Eddy, we may want to…” Kate began, but halted mid-sentence as he yelled out loud and slammed the throttle forward.

“No, not forward!” I screamed, trying to stand.

Ky screamed as a hand latched onto the window near her seat. Another appeared at the rear and Oscar’s shotgun ripped through the silence. He yelled loudly, urging Eddy forward.

“No, there’s too many!” I tried again, but my voice was drowned out by the heavy sounds of impacts all around, like watermelons rolling around a tin can, as bodies careened off the sides of the awkward vehicle. Kate’s shotgun spoke twice, both shots taking a waterlogged, rotting face full bore, blasting them from the sides. Ky was standing shakily in the center of the aisle, and I bolted past her toward Eddy whose face was frozen in a rictus of hate as he barreled the vehicle toward the curtain of falling bodies.

Hundreds were still falling, no end in sight to the press of flesh above.

The motor roared as we drove through more bodies, vibrations shaking the hull when spinning rotors tore flesh.

Jorge started firing, large fifty cal bullets spitting into the falling bodies with flashes of light, hitting some, but missing many. Body parts split from the falling corpses, creating a rain of blood, flesh and brain as we neared the bridge.

My hand reached forward for the throttle, but a preternaturally strong hand from Eddy slapped me away as I stumbled, off balance, and fell against the floor as the vehicle hit several bodies at once and shuddered heavily. Behind me, Ky screamed again and I heard Kate’s voice shout loudly.

“Get under the seats!”

I turned over, staring up in time to see the bodies falling toward the open cabin.

THIRTY-EIGHT

The first one hit
the windshield and shattered the glass, the body bursting open against the thick shards and flopping inside, on top of Eddy, whose hands were still locked on the steering wheel.

Another caught the edge of the cabin next to the turret, pulling the guns out of Jorge’s hands and swiveling the turret so quickly that he screamed out in pain as his head slammed against the rail and he slumped over, blood pouring from a gash in his head.

The third and fourth bodies fell directly into the cabin, one at the mid point, and one at the back, near Oscar. Both slammed into the seats and tore apart, the thick, chunky blood and gore of a long-dead shambler splattering the cabin and those inside like rotten jelly.

I shot back as the creature from the windshield turned toward me, head somehow still intact, teeth gnashing as it pulled its destroyed torso from the windshield, pieces of green intestine dragging behind as they caught on the shattered glass. A fresh globule of flesh was in its mouth, and blood dripped from the open orifice.

Behind the bloody mass of the creature, Eddy’s hands loosened on the wheel, blood spurting in jets from his shattered carotid artery, one hand shooting to his ragged, torn flesh, hoping to stem the flow. Even as I pulled my weapon free from the spring-loaded holster at my thigh, the machine powered through, emerging from the echoing shadow of the bridge into new water beyond.

I fired once, taking the thing in the eye as it surged forward. It flopped to the floor, battered carcass leaking fluid as I turned to the rear of the vehicle, ignoring the blood dripping from the turret above.

Ky was screaming as a nearly bisected corpse in the tattered remnants of a gray suit scraped its hands against the filthy seat. Its legs, nearly detached from the impact, twitched slowly on the row of seats behind, the spinal cord clearly visible between the two halves. I raised my gun and paused, trying to find a safe shot. A row away, Kate was shaking her head, and her eyes were blinking rapidly as if just awakening. A large contusion on her forehead was clearly visible.

I shot forward, hand going to the blade at my side.

But Kate, even delusional and half-concussed, was faster.

Don’t ever mess with a mama bear.

She was a nightmare of viciousness, her hands shooting out from her body to grasp the creature by the filthy lapels. She lifted it easily from the seat and her mouth turned down in a primitive growl. At first I thought the set of her shoulders was preparation for lifting the bloody remnants and throwing them overboard.

But she had different ideas.

The broken, yellowed teeth in the ravaged face gnashed together wildly as Kate’s gauntleted left hand found the throat, closing on the flesh and squeezing as she pulled up on the spine, pulling the head away from the cord, and ripping it from the body. She yanked the torso up, and I heard the pop as the bottom of the spine pulled free finally from the twitching legs. Then, head in one hand, torso held in the other by the weathered lapels of the suit jacket, her arms rose above her head as she stared into the sky and jettisoned the two pieces into the water.

She turned back toward where I stood, one hand still clutching the pistol and one hand on the forgotten hilt of my machete. Her eyes were wild, and she was gasping, taking deep breaths. Then, she was on the floor, searching for Ky.

I snapped forward, broken from the scene, as the shotgun in Oscar’s hand spoke twice, his booted leg holding down the last of the boarders, a bloody smear of brain and bone the only thing left of the creature’s head.

Turning toward where Eddy was now slumped over the wheel, I glanced once at Jorge until I heard Oscar yell.

“Get Eddy, I’ll get Jorge!”

Pulling the mortally wounded man from the wheel, I knew he only had moments of life remaining. His jugular had been pulled out and severed by the creature at my feet, and he was covered in his own blood. He looked up at me weakly, and saw it in my eyes. Calmly, he pulled his hand from the wheel and groped for his sidearm. I nodded, and pulled him from the seat, leaning him against the wall and taking control of the vessel enough to slow the rattling motor and point us back toward the deeper water in the middle of the lake.

Eddy’s hand was on his gun, which lay on his chest, pointed toward his face. But his life had gone. His eyes stared at me, almost as if accusing.

“Mike, Jorge’s in a bad way, man. This is a bad cut. He might not pull through.”

“Kate, can you—”

“On it,” she said quickly, springing to help Jorge.

Ky walked gingerly forward as Romeo whimpered once, stopping at the feet of Eddy and backing up, as if he knew what came next.

I turned to the girl—the young woman, I admitted reluctantly—and watched silently as she raised her crossbow and put a bolt through the old man’s temple in one fluid motion. Romeo whimpered once more and lay down on the slowly bucking metal floor.

Jorge groaned loudly, but I focused on the way ahead. I could see the gently sloping, still manicured-appearing lawns of the university, even in the scant light of the moon as it flicked behind fast-moving wisps of vapor high above.

The old hybrid machine hiccupped several times as I moved the throttle forward, and a nasty vibration in the hull was ample evidence that the press of bodies behind had taken a toll. The engine wasn’t sputtering, and continued to grind along, but it was only a matter of time.

“He’s going to need some attention,” Kate said, reaching my shoulder as I pulled us into the last hundred meters before the shore. I nodded, knowing the score.

“I’m going to send Oscar home with Jorge after they drop us off,” I said quietly, aiming us toward a long wooden dock that extended out from the long, sloping lawn leading into the lake from the university grounds. Large trees were sprinkled throughout the lawn, obscuring the visibility of the space. Several massive concrete and brick buildings rose behind the lawns, their blank facades like unreadable faces, watching us approach. At odds with the empty feeling that the campus presented, a single red banner announcing a freshman orientation mixer flapped in the breeze from a gazebo near the water’s edge, one corner limp where a tie down rope had snapped.

Kate glanced at Ky, who was cleaning the bolt she had just retrieved from Eddy’s limp form.

“You think that’s a good idea?” she asked, voice steady.

“I think it’s necessary,” I said. “I’m not taking that family’s father and husband away from them. Those people have given us more than we had a right to take already. We’re done with them. If we get out of here, we call a helo and evac from the roof. You know the drill. Once we’re on our way out, we don’t have to worry about the noise. We just have to get to a chopper. The medical center has a helipad—we can use that.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I know we talked about this, but… this is a hospital. Remember that the odds of it being empty, or even passable, are remote. This is one of the places people would have been flocking to when this thing hit. Maybe they’ve all left. Maybe they were drawn out looking for food. But when we’re done, we have to get to the roof to make it out of here. That’s seven floors of walking dead.”

The water was getting choppy as we neared the shore and I slowed the machine, trying to get close enough to the pier so that we could jump off without tying down. Oscar was on his own on his way back.

“I know,” I said. “But this has never promised to be easy. It has always been what it is: a clusterfuck of a situation. We have a goal. We have a reason. We can make it happen. I know that’s not enough. But it’s going to have to suffice.”

“Hell, yeah,” said Ky’s smallish voice, her head popping up at my elbow as I finished. Kate laughed and brought a hand to the girl’s head.

I looked at her palsied limb. She could barely contain the shaking and her eyes darkened.

“It’s getting worse,” I said, glancing at the hand and then into her eyes. She nodded.

“Me too.”

It took longer for the heart to slow.

The chest hurt more. The shaking was more severe.

We wouldn’t last much longer. Not like this.

“Contact,” said Oscar, his voice quiet. Rhodes’ voice was equally calm.

“Copy.”

“No shots,” I said, throttling down and letting the slow churn of the propellers take us the last fifty feet on the incoming tide. “Let’s offload fast. Oscar, you’re going home. Can you man this thing yourself?”

“To hell with that,” he said, his eyes still glued to the two shambling forms that were emerging from the tree cover near the base of the pier where the wood met the grass. “I’m seeing this through.”

I had prepared for this.

“You going to leave Jorge alone? You going to kill him like that? You’ve done enough. More than enough.”

His eyes moved to me briefly, hate flashing through his glance. Hatred for the situation, and for me. For implying that he would leave a man behind.

He didn’t speak. He threw the shotgun over his shoulder and climbed to the top of the side of the machine, reaching out for the tall wooden pillars that lined the long pier. Kate and Ky rose quickly and followed him as we drifted forward. I cut the power, throwing it briefly into reverse before throwing it into idle. I didn’t want to cut the engine off completely, even though it would have given us much-needed silence. If it went dead now, there would be no way to restart it.

Rhodes went first, carbine up and pointing toward the lawn as he cleared the gap between the boat and the pier. Next, Kate swung Ky up to the wooden walkway, timing the swaying motion of the boat as Oscar pulled it in with a long pole tipped with a crude metal hook. Romeo followed Ky, limp in Kate’s arms until she tossed him forward, familiar with the drill. Kate jumped across, easily making the gap. As she came ashore, Rhodes moved forward toward land, never looking back.

I turned to Oscar.

“Listen, I…”

“Just go, man. I get it.” He was struggling with the pole and the hook, and I simply nodded and climbed to the edge, leaping across.

The pole fell to the ground as he moved forward, hand flying to the throttle and easing the machine into reverse.

The faster he left, the quieter it got.

As he pulled away, he raised his hand to his forehead in mock salute.

I just put my hand up in a motionless gesture of farewell.

My feet were loud on the planks as I jogged to the end, meeting Kate and Ky as they stood, staring up the gentle hill through the scattered trees and up to the large buildings. Past the trees and the grass that spread out before us, a large parking lot separated us from the medical center. To the right, an academic building in stark, red brick rose from the shrubbery surrounding its foundation; to the left, a simple facilities outbuilding, with large extensions of ductwork and piping emerging at random angles. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot, and an abandoned facilities maintenance truck was parked merely meters away, oddly positioned near the small boathouse at the end of the pier.

“Time to check in,” I said softly to Kate, as I heard Rhodes’ weapon whisper twice, downing the two lone shamblers that were making their way slowly toward us from the top of the hill.

She nodded and motioned to Ky to squat down, as Rhodes did the same several meters ahead, behind a bright green recycling bin.

“SeaTac command, this is Seeker. Do you copy?”

My comms were scratchy, but still operable. We had established a comm check schedule when we left. We would call in when we reached the campus, and if they didn’t hear from us in 24 hours, they would call us. No other radio traffic, to minimize noise and possible outside monitoring. They hadn’t had issues with large militias in this area, but they knew they were out there.

I repeated my call, hoping the repeaters around the city were still functional.

“… have you Lima Charlie. What is your position?”

The moon, assholes. I thought we had gone over this.

“We’re at Graceland, SeaTac. Over.”

A moment’s pause as I watched Rhodes take careful aim at a slow form turning the corner next to the facilities building.

“Copy that, Seeker. How’s it look? Over.”

“Too early to tell, SeaTac. We’ll let you know when we find Elvis. Seeker out.”

I cut off the transmission and waved the rest forward, after Rhodes. He crouched and moved to the next tree. Weaving and bobbing between cover, we made our way over the lawn to the low slatted fence surrounding the small parking lot. Through the windows of the brick building to the right, I saw movement.

“Okay, back entrance to the hospital is ahead. However, we don’t want the this entrance. The research facility is on the opposite side of the building. There’s a large open area on the front side of the building, between us and the stadium.”

“Jesus, not another stadium,” muttered Ky. Next to her, Romeo sighed heavily. Even though I knew he was unlikely to understand the commentary, I didn’t appreciate his attitude.

“Yes, but we don’t have to get through this one. We just have to go around the south side of the hospital, to the front. The special entrance to the research facility is in a recessed basement on the south side, a hundred feet from the main entrance. If you see any signs for “Advanced Treatments” let me know. That’s the entrance. Good to go?”

There were a total of four cars in the lot, all of them covered in the accumulated dust and dirt of neglect after their time sitting unattended. We picked our way through the vacant concrete space, and my eyes were pulled back up to the windows looking down on our position from the brick building to the right. Bodies moved in the building next to us, pushing against the glass and metal, staring out, trying to get to us. They were thin and their faces emaciated, as if they had been locked away for far too long.

“You seeing this?” asked Rhodes, also sparing a glance for the building as he scanned the way ahead, taking the lead once again. He passed the front of an old imported truck and turned from side to side, night vision goggles again perched over his eyes, dull red glow a beacon in the darkness.