Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (27 page)

The guy just glared at her until point man number one barked for him to confirm an all clear.
"Don’t look at me like that," Jennifer growled when he ignored the order, "you practically disarmed
yourself."

"Harrison, is your hall clear?" Point man one finally got up in fatal funnel flunkies face when it
was clear he wasn’t going to get over it on his own. As soon as there was someone to take over dealing
with triple-f she focused her attention down the wider hall full of elevators. She knew that hall was all
that stood between her and the emergency room. She could take off and meet Tom on her own, that
would make him mad, it would also force Brook to follow her, she was stuck here waiting for Point man
one and Triple-F to reassert who was in charge and who couldn’t clear a corner.

"Hang in there Sir we’ll be back on course," Jennifer looked back at Brook and rolled her eyes.

"As long as we’re going to be stuck here Brook I wish you’d just call me Jennifer or Ryan or
anything but Sir."

"Whatever you’d like little lady," Brook was smiling, because she’d given him an opening to
start calling her what, little lady?

"If you start calling me Little Lady Brook you won’t like the name I’ll come up with for you."
Admittedly it wouldn’t be as easy to give him a degrading nick-name as Triple-F but she would mange
something. When she put her attention back into the next hall to be cleared she nearly jumped out of her
skin to see that Alpha had ghosted their way right down the hall without her noticing. Tom was smack in
front of her and he was lucky her reflexes were good or she would have shot him. "Jesus Christ Tom
are you trying to get yourself shot," she growled even though she wanted to screech it at him at the top
of her lungs.

"I see you already managed not to follow orders," he was glaring again, although she suspected
he did it a lot anyway. She observed her current location, she was furthest in the hall, making it look like
she’d intended to take point even if she hadn’t.

In the end she just shrugged at him because what could she say, if he’d wanted her to stay safely
tucked into a center somewhere he should have taken a better look at the layout of the first floor. "How
was the E.R., sounded busy," it was a lousy attempt to distract him from his war path to keep her in line.

He didn’t answer her which was typical Tom, instead he called over his shoulder, "lock the
elevators down." Without a second glance he was working his way back down the hall, if he thought
Jennifer wasn’t going to follow him he was crazy.

"Tom, what are you doing in here," she just spat the question out because she didn’t think there
was any way to work up to it. "If this is really just clean-up why not just light the building up," as if
she’d just said something that could send his entire little operation into revolt he spun back on her.

"Is that what you want, I thought you wanted to find your people."

"I do," she gave him a suspicious glance, "don’t try to make it sound like you did this for me we
both know that’s not what this is. If this place isn’t leveled to the ground it’s because there’s something
in here you want, I want to know what or who it is."

"Sorry Jenny, but you made your choice," she was tempted to kick him in the shin, this was his
way of reminding her that he’d given her the choice to join his operation, she’d chosen to go elsewhere
and so was not privy to his super secret government ulterior motives.

"Fine," if that was the way he wanted to play it then perfect, she didn’t want to waste her time
with his super secret bull shit anyway. She didn’t follow him back down the hall where she was sure he
was going to order more people around. That suited her just fine, his little operation would probably run
smoother without her anyway. Before making her way back down the hall to Whiskey she took a
moment to ascertain that there was a staircase at the other end of the hall. She didn’t want to bring
Tom’s operation to a halt, she simply didn’t necessarily feel it was the best use of her time to blindly
follow him around. Which he’d just made perfectly clear was exactly how he was expecting things to
proceed.

‘Tactically speaking separating from the group seems unwise, given the probable
population locked into the building.’

Jennifer shook her head, she didn’t remember asking, ‘Rou since you’ve been mostly useless
outside of being a nag I think we’ll just agree to disagree.’ She thought to herself and prayed that the
damn voice would shut up, she was going to need all her focus if she had any hope of managing this.
The voice apparently agreed because silence was her only answer, at least they could agree on that
much. She stomped her way back away from the direction Tom had gone and therefore to the stairwell
door that was furthest from him.

"What are you up to," Brook met her at the door, an event she could have lived without.

"Oh you know just rarin’ to go," she said still fuming, she glared over her shoulder in Tom’s
direction just to ascertain he wasn’t watching her every move, he wasn’t.

"He letting you take point, don’t think Tyler will like losing Whiskey much," Brook looked over
his shoulder and indicated Point-man One who was still tearing into Fatal Funnel Flunky.

"No worries, I think he’s safe," it might take him a little longer then he’d like to get his team in
the door but he’d get to keep his command. "You want to help me with the door," Jennifer asked
feeling bad to involve Brook in her schemes at all.

"What for," he looked puzzled but took hold of the handle when she indicated.

"Just open the door," he was fatally flawed in the sense that it was clear he took orders even
when he wasn’t sure what he was doing. As soon as he pulled the door open she cleared the entrance,
shame Triple-F couldn’t have gotten the practice. It was clear so she took the door from Brook, "you
can step back." She waved him back with the Beretta in her hand and again to his own detriment did as
he was told.

"What are you up to anyhow, I don’t think the Lieutenant would like you jumping ahead a
schedule." Brook watched her step back out in the hall and stared at her confused when she aimed the
9mm at the door handle.

"Don’t take this personally Brook because it has nothing to do with you, but this is where we
split ways." She quickly shot the handle, she barely took note of the way the men who were waiting for
orders jumped, she was too busy yanking the weakened handle off the frame. The door was an
emergency push bar, it couldn’t be locked from the stairwell itself, but ripping the handle off this end
would slow them up a bit. "Sorry," she called to a stunned looking Brook before slamming the door
closed behind herself.

"What are you doing?!" She heard Brook shout through the door, she really did feel bad about
leaving him, he’d probably feel bad breaking an order and all.

"JENNIFER," she heard Tom outside the door now and he did not sound pleased. "OPEN
THIS DOOR!"

"No can do," she answered before taking off up the stairs, pausing only to clear the corners.
She was fully aware that as plans went this was probably a really bad one, she herself had thought earlier
that thousands of people came in and out of this building in a day. Who knew how many there were
inside at the moment, who knew how many there were on just the one floor she wanted. She’d brought
ammo but not enough to kill hundreds, she was acting like an idiot, probably. "Too late now," she told
herself, and just like Tom was determined to prove her wrong a shot rang up the hall and she heard the
stairwell door being kicked in. She had no idea why she hadn’t expected that to happen so quickly,
Tom was a control freak, and a robot, but he didn’t play around when it came to his job. She had just
done her best to fuck with that, he was probably pissed, and the minute he caught her she could look
forward to getting kicked out of the building.

"JENNIFER STOP!" of course if he was yelling then it meant that she needed to haul more ass,
she took two more flights of stairs surprised to find them so clear. Tom was still yelling at her, though
she wasn’t really listening to him, probably for the best because she was at the sixth floor when she
heard it.

Without pause she stopped and leaned her head back over the railing to look if she could see
Tom. "Shut up," she finally yelled over the railing, "you’re bringing them down the stairs," she called
down to him.

"GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE NOW!" he was glaring up at her, she could tell even from
this distance.

"Just clear your floors Tom, I’ll meet you," despite the general hissing, moaning and other
unpleasant noises descending the stairs Jennifer forced herself to continue to take the stairs two at a time.
She didn’t want to leave Tom and his alone to deal with this, hell she didn’t even want to deal with this
by herself, but she didn’t think that Tom was going to let anything out of his parameters happen. Or at
least that was her usual assumption but he’d clearly taken a group of his and decided to come chase
after her. What was wrong with him? She made it to the seventh level before what she was hoping was
all the dead people in the hall came stumbling down the steps in front of her. "Christ," she counted
twelve, she tried to tell herself that it could be worse, but she didn’t really want to picture that. She tried
not to look at them, not really, and not just because they were missing limbs and flesh, she didn’t want to
potentially recognize anyone and hesitate. She’d been hospitalized here on at least three occasions, she
knew people here, and then there was Manson, Clive and potentially any family that had been visiting to
worry about. She aimed at their faces but didn’t look at them, instead she cataloged them by clothing,
six scrubs, two lab coats, and four plain cloths.

The Beretta in her hands held a 15 round magazine, her clip ran empty before she could speedily
plug all of them. She had four left stumbling over bodies to get to her while she reloaded, she tried to
stay calm, that was key. She took a step back down the flight of stairs, as she ejected the empty
magazine and she nearly had the next clip in, one of the zombies tripped over one of it’s officially dead
companions and came sprawling in her direction. She jumped down another few steps to avoid it’s
snapping teeth, but didn’t manage to keep herself from shrieking like a girl. She could have just shot it,
but since it was already down there with it’s head on the stairs she slammed her foot down on it’s head.
It’s skull gave way with surprising ease with the corner of the step pressed against it’s temple. She
quickly shot the last two scrubs and remaining plain cloths before she could take a breath. It wasn’t until
she could tune back into Tom yelling for her again that she noticed, one he was probably only a floor
beneath her now and two, there was an edge of alarm in his yelling this time, she was going to chalk that
up to her girlish screaming. Under normal circumstances she would have called down to let him know
that she was alright, at least unbitten, as it was she knew he was on his way to have her dragged out of
the building, and she wasn’t going to let that happen until she’d laid eyes on Clive or Manson herself.

Kicking her way past the bodies on the steps Jennifer ran her way up the last couple flights of
stairs, she probably should have been more careful but she knew that she was out of time if Tom got to
her first. She was comforted at least that the only gun fire so far in the stairwell had been her own. As
soon as she reached the tenth floor she kicked the door in, was unsure what she’d been expecting, a
horde to try and push out at her. Only one stumbled through the frame, a slight female in scrubs with a
bloodied head and a hand that was degloved nearly to the bone. Jennifer put a bullet in her already
ruined face and stepped over the body. She cleared the hall on both ends, for now nothing came at her,
she had expected more destruction on this floor. Was it possible for her to keep her fingers crossed and
hope that somehow this hadn’t happened because her people were here. She looked both ways down
the hall trying to remember what room Clive had been in. Her and her group were regulars at this
hospital so usually if they ended up hospitalized in pairs the staff did their best to see them in the same
rooms or at least rooms close by. She glanced right, the hall was well lit, a few smears of blood lined
the walls but was otherwise clear, to the left at least one of the flourescent lights had taken a bullet and
she was pretty certain there were body parts on the floor.

In that moment she really wished that she thought her peoples rooms were to the right but she
was pretty sure that at least Clive was to the left. She had no idea at all where Manson was because
she’d had no time to visit, if he was in fact dead, then the last she would have seen of him will have been
that moment in the alley. The thought had her trying to stow tears, she couldn’t afford them now, not
when there was a chance they were alive. She took herself to the left, trying to pull up Clive’s room
number on memory, while trying not to slip on the blood-slick floor, tile and blood made for bad footing.
Doing her best to glance from room to room and checking in the small windows she took note that most
beds, while messy, were abandoned. Had they been evacuating, she hoped that more people had made
it out of the building then had been trapped in it. But then this mess had made it all the way down to the
first floor, making evacuation unlikely, so it was probable that at least one of these floors was jammed up
with zombies. She hoped like hell Tom’s people didn’t find that floor without warning. Finally when
everything was looking unfamiliar Jennifer made sure the hall was still clear on both ends then pulled her
phone out and scrolled down to a text from a few nights back that had Clive’s room number in it.