Orpheus (6 page)

When the doors opened, the unfortunates who were standing close were attacked immediately. A few, the lucky ones, died almost as quickly. The truth was that if everyone who was immediately attacked died they could have contained it right then and there; Holt, Mutt, and Anders were already moving with their weapons drawn and most likely could have dealt with the half dozen zombies before they did any more damage. As it happened, some died and the rest were turned with frightening speed. In some cases, only a few seconds passed between bite, death, and reanimation. There was no warning. Everyone else surged away as quickly as they could, but the bodies were already packed tightly and there was nowhere to retreat to. The slower, weaker ones were trampled underfoot.

The infection traveled outward like a ripple in a pond. Zombie infects human, human turns, new zombie infects another, rinse and repeat.

“The stairs!!!” Anders screamed, and Holt thought that was a great idea. He had no chance of stemming the tide here, so he chose the better part of valor. Mutt apparently had the same idea, as did a few others. Those with weapons used them indiscriminately, as everything in their path either was a zombie or was turning into one. Anders made it first and slammed open the door. Holt had a vision of the man grinning crazily and slamming the door shut on everyone else, but he actually sent a few rounds in support, despite having already reached safety. Mutt, and several others caught up with him. Holt, the last one through, didn't bother taking another look before slamming the door and bracing it with his shoulder. He must have been spotted, because a vicious pounding commenced on the other side. A stocky black man added his bulk to Holt's, and Holt was grateful.

“We have anything to block this?!?” Holt bellowed.

One of the men who had made it was the security guard who Holt had drawn on earlier. If he held a grudge, he smartly didn't let it affect his current decision making. “The 3rd floor has a shitload of office furniture!”

“Go! Go! Everyone else help him! I don't give a fuck if you throw it down the stairs!”

Anders, Mutt, and the two others (Holt didn't notice that one was a woman until they came back) took the stairs two and three at a time and disappeared around a corner. A few seconds later they heard the 3rd floor door slamming shut.

The man next to him asked, “You think they're coming back?” He sounded out of breath. He looked in pretty good shape for his age (Holt guessed mid-50's), so Holt chalked it up to anxiety. He also knew there was a real chance that he sounded the same.

“Yeah. That cop is the real thing.”

“Will it make a difference if they don't?”

Holt considered the circumstances, the magnitude of what they were facing. He didn't know how to honestly answer that question, so he said. “If they don't, the good news is I have enough bullets to kill us both several times.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn't get you anything.”

Holt chuckled. “Man with a sense of humor. I-”

The 3rd floor stairwell door slammed open again. “Coming down! Get ready to move your asses!” Mutt's duo back came into view. He and Anders were carrying a very heavy-looking wooden desk. When they got near the bottom they flipped it up the long way and got a good grip.

Holt's companion knew what they had in mind.“You good for three seconds?”

Holt dug in as hard as he could. “Go!”

He scrambled to his feet as the other men butted an edge of the desk up against the door. Holt was wedged, but he wriggled out and around it. Though the door was only unattended for two seconds, the lock almost buckled from the pounding. It held, barely, and the desk slammed into place. Holt and his partner resumed their positions, this time with a slab of wood between them and the door. The extra weight was a welcome addition, but Holt was a long way from comfortable. “Keep it coming!”

He didn't have to wait long. Right behind them was a similar desk. The woman who carried one end was slightly built, and she was obviously struggling, but she held her own. Dozens of pieces came down, and Holt and his workmate Sam (Holt learned his name after the third desk) continued their dance until the furniture was packed tightly halfway up the stairwell. Then they relaxed, but not much.

“Come on,” Mutt said. “Third floor's abandoned.”

They all went upstairs. Abandoned was exactly the way to describe it. It was clear that the occupants of the offices had evacuated. It had the feel of a ghost town, which was a welcome respite from the pandemonium of the last few hours. They all collapsed in the chairs nearest to them. No one spoke for several moments. Holt thought that they might be in shock, but he just had nothing to say.

Anders broke the silence. “Damn, I dropped my smokes. Some zombie's probably lighting up on my dime right now.”

The woman reached into her jacket pocket and produced a pack of clove cigarettes.”I've been trying to quit, so this is the best I can do.”

“Works for me.” He took two and walked over to the window. Holt wanted to think he was being polite, but the smart money said he was just antisocial.

She held the pack out to the group. “Anyone else?”

Sam took one. “What he said, except cigars.”

Holt leaned over to Mutt. “This floor secured?”

“Yeah. We buried the other stairwell entrance, too. I don't think the elevator's going anywhere anymore.”

“Nice.” Holt picked up the phone handset on the desk closest to him. There was no dial tone. “Dead. But these phones might just be disconnected. There are a whole lot of other floors to check. Any vending machines?”

“I haven't seen any yet.”

The woman said, “There's a break room down that hallway. The machines are in there. Water, too.”

The rest of the group stared at her.

She peeked out from under her Red Sox cap. “I'm the senior network administrator here. Lena Moore.”

“Okay. It's good to have someone who knows the lay of the land, so to speak. If you wouldn't mind, Lena, take...” He looked to the security guard. “...take Officer Salmon here and smash 'n grab those machines. It doesn't really matter what you take, just take a lot of it. After we catch our breath, I say we head up, floor by floor, until we find the ideal place to hole up and figure this thing out. Those barricades will probably hold, but I'm not betting my life on it. Holt?”

He thought on it, trying to find any flaws. “It's as good a plan as any.”

“Got it. And call me Fish.” He and Lena went about their task. She led him first to the supply closet where they grabbed trash bags, presumably to load them up with empty calories.

Holt had a thought. “Grab any batteries! And, sorry about the gun in your face thing!” The pair heard him. Fish held up a peace sign in acknowledgment as they split up, Lena to the supply room and Fish to the break area.

“Okay, do we even know what's above us?” Sam asked in between puffs of his cigarette. “It would make sense that the upper floors would be zombie...is that what we're calling them?...zombie-free. And that there are survivors, too. But the only way to know is to check each floor.”

“Yup.”

“Okay, then.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Just don't pair me up with the guy at the window. He gives me the creeps.”

“You and me both, Sam,” Holt reassured him.

“Sarge! SARGE!” Fish's panicked voice sounded from the break room. Holt and Mutt drew at the same time, expecting to see a pack of zombies on the kid's tail, but he was waving a two-way radio instead. Lena was a few paces behind him. “I just got a transmission from downstairs! They got a radio off of another guard!”

“Say that again?”

“Hold on!” He put the two-way to his mouth and transmitted. “Last caller repeat!” He released the button and they all waited. Even Anders moved close enough to hear.

There was a crackle of static, then: “Thank God you're there! Me and a bunch of other people made it into the bathroom, but those things are trying to get in! Please help us!”

Five people kept passing looks to one another. All of their gazes settled on the sixth.

Holt grabbed the radio from Fish and held it out to Mutt. “You're the law,” he said.

“What am I supposed to tell them? Congratulations on being alive, now smash a mirror and cut your own throats?”

Holt said nothing, but continued to offer the radio.

Mutt snatched it up with a grumbled curse. He cleared his throat. “This is Sergeant Mutters of the LWPD. What's your name, caller?”

“It's Burt! Burt Allen!”

“Okay, Burt, how is everybody else?”

“Scared shitless!”

“That's understandable, of course.” He released the mic and spoke to the group. “What am I supposed to do? I can't help them!”

“You know what to tell them, Mutters,” Anders said. “You just told us.”

Holt's watched the look of dawning horror come over his new friend's face. His heart broke for the Sergeant, and at that moment he decided he could be the bad guy. He took the radio from his shaking hands and walked away from the group. “Burt, my name is Cameron Holt.” Pause. “Yeah, that guy.”

Lena asked, “Wait, where's he going? What's he going to tell them?”

“He's going to tell them they should have moved faster, probably.”

“You heartless asshole!” She pleaded with the others. “Isn't there anything...?”

“There's no hope for them, Lena,” Fish said softly. “Zero.”

The last thing they heard before Holt closed the door to the supply room was, “Do you have the guard's gun, too?”

Holt was gone for more than five minutes, but no one spoke. Anders wandered back over to the window and lit up his second cigarette, but no one else even sat down.

They heard a muffled gunshot. It sounded like it came from downstairs.

Maybe from a downstairs bathroom.

Another shot quickly followed the first, then another right on top of that. Silence again. They could hear Holt yelling, then screaming, from the supply room. Sam was closest, and he thought he could make out the words “do it” over and over again, getting louder each time.

There was one final shot, and silence. Holt didn't open the door for another five minutes. When he finally did, he didn't speak. He handed the radio back to Fish, slammed through the stairwell door, and headed up to the fourth floor.

Mutt felt ashamed that he let another man do the dirty work that, by virtue of his authority, should have been his. He owed that man a gigantic debt of honor, and he vowed to himself that he would spend the rest of his life, however long it might be, repaying it. In the meantime, he'd take control of the group again. Holt would need their support. “Okay, grab the food and drinks. Fish, is there another armory?”

The question seemed to take the younger man by surprise, but it snapped him out of his fugue. “What? Oh, uhhhh, no. Only in the main office, on the second floor. And I think we've established that that's a lost cause right now.”

“Thought so. We'll figure it out on the way. Let's go.”

They grabbed what they could and entered the stairwell more cautiously than Holt had a few moments before.

They searched each floor in turn, and were left with one question: where were all the patients?

“This makes dozens of people,” Lena offered. “I know some of them were...downstairs. I have no clue where the rest could have gone.” She looked to Fish. “Did you guys run a fire drill?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not that I know of. Even if we did, I'd think that most people would have taken their coffees, at least.” He cocked his head to his shoulder and stared. "That's weird."

"What?" Sam asked.

"Nothing. Just...thinking out loud."

“Maybe they went up?” Mutt said.

“That's an idea. What's on the upper floors, Lena?”

“The labs, executive offices, cafeteria. That's where I was headed; I was supposed to network a bunch of new machines in the labs when all of this kicked off.”

“Up we go.”

They climbed several more flights of stairs (peeking in to confirm the status of the next two floors) until they reached the 7th. Holt made to walk through it as he had all the others and nearly dislocated his shoulder. The door held firm. There were no locks, so it had to be barricaded from the inside. And to be barricaded from the inside, there would have to be people.

“Hey!” He pounded on the door. “Open up! We have survivors out here!” He got no answer. “Try the radio.”

Fish started to cycle through the channels. “This is Security 2, anyone there? Hello?”

On channel 4, they got a response. “Security 2, this is Dr. Lewis. How many are you? Any wounded?”

“Six, and miraculously, no.”

“Hang tight; we'll let you in.”

* * *

Orpheus returned as Mutt finished up. “And that's how we met Martin Trager, head of hospital and kind of a prick. I don't like him, I sure as Hell don't trust him, but we need him. And he needs what we can provide for him.”

“Specimens?” Tim asked.

“Right. And our experience. We survived the initial outbreak with few weapons and no organization. Now we have some tools. It's not ideal, but it's mostly doable. Trager's a bureaucrat, not a grunt, like us. He never would have been able to put this together.”