42
Seyfert nodded as Androwski brought his dead holographic sight to his eye and leveled his MP5SD3 at the server room door. The open sight picture granted a full view, as the battery-powered optics had failed along with Seyfert’s some weeks before. Seyfert held up three fingers, and it was Andy’s turn to nod.
The SEAL from New Jersey put his hand on the door handle and counted silently to three. He shoved the door open and they stepped through, weapons at the ready. It was relatively loud in the room, as the blade servers in multiple racks and chilling towers that cooled them were humming away. The man in the chair had his back to the door with his feet up on a parts-and-wire ridden desk, and hadn’t heard the SEALs come in. His compatriot was facing the newcomers, however, and became extremely agitated at their entrance.
“Whasamatter Tim,” the bearded fellow half-yelled. “I told you, we can watch the last part of
The Holy Grail
when the level four data is done compiling. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, buddy!”
Seyfert moved to the left side and looked down the rows of server racks. Androwski covered him. “Clear,” he mouthed.
Androwski nodded and pointed his weapon at the man, but kept his finger on his trigger guard. “Sir!”
The man whipped around and stood up, eyes wide and breathing fast. He blinked hard a few times, turned his head to the dead man and said something.
“I didn’t catch that, sir,” Androwski said. “Would you please repeat that as you put your hands on your head?”
The man swallowed hard putting his hands on his head. “I asked Tim if he sees you too. He says yes.”
Seyfert stepped up next to the man and frisked him. “He’s clean.”
“Who are you guys?”
“We’re US Navy. We’ve brought some scientists here to help work on a possible cure for the plague.”
“Why the hell would you bring them here?”
“You have the computers and some data they need to work, and this facility is secure. Where is everyone else?”
“The important folks got airlifted out when the Army pulled out of Boston. The big boys realized that this place wasn’t as impregnable as some others, and they wanted to take the smart people to someplace they could control them. At least that’s what I think. Most of the nerds were eager to get on the helicopters, but I knew better. Probably staggering around out there someplace right now or under the jackboots of
The Man
.”
“You said most, where are the others?”
“One level down. You can see them on the monitor there if you’ll let me…” he let the question hang but pointed toward a monitor.
“Go ahead, but do it slowly.”
He looked at the zombie, who was still struggling. “I know, right? As if I would do anything to get shot.” The man pressed a soft-button on his monitor screen, and the camera feed switched from another server room to a waiting area, then a lab, then to a wide open space. “That’s them.”
They were all dead. Savaged and covered in dried blood, the inhabitants of the large room milled about, stumbling by the camera with vacant stares and red eyes.
“They needed someone to maintain the servers up here while they stayed safe down there. You see there’s no way down there other than the elevator, and it’s stuck. Won’t move now that it’s down there, so you would have to climb, and who’s crazy enough to do that? I mean other than us, right Tim?”
“What happened to them?”
“They died. Well, one of ‘em died, and then ate the others. Actually, I guess she only kind of died, because she was up again in a couple minutes. She was fast though, not slow like them. She attacked some others, then they turned and did the same. It was absolute bedlam, people in total panic, running every which way. Bullets from the security guys flying into both the living and the dead. The last guy to go was hiding in that bathroom for a couple days before they wandered in there and got him.” He looked at the zombie again. “At least we think that they got him, right buddy? Nobody came out again, the door opens in. Anyway, it took almost ten days for the fast chick, I dunno her name, to starve to death, and now she’s not so fast anymore. I’m Bob by the way.” He stuck his hand out.
Androwski shouldered his weapon and shook Bob’s hand. “Call me Androwski, that’s Seyfert.” Seyfert nodded.
“What is that place?” Androwski asked, pointing to the monitor.
“Bunker. Supposed to hold one hundred people for twenty years or something. Nuke bunker I think.” He turned to the dead man and chuckled, “Bet they never thought of the living dead getting them from the inside, huh Tim?”
“Neither did NORAD. How did Tim die?”
“He’s right here, dude… Me and Tim were checking the power couplings on the chilling towers and he got a tad too close. He got zapped and kicked it. Electricity must have done something to him, because he didn’t turn for hours, and I was able to…restrain him before he attempted to snack on me.”
“We need to sanitize him, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, um, he’s in the room Mr. Androwski, you can talk to him. What does sanitize mean?”
Seyfert had had enough. “It means shoot him in the fucking head so he doesn’t infect us.” The SEAL raised his weapon and pointed it at Tim’s head.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Kill it? Why? It’s already dead, your friend is gone.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m not a complete crazy person. But if you shoot that weapon in here the Halon system might trigger and we’re all dead in four minutes. And you can’t kill him if he’s already dead anyway. Duh.” Bob lowered his eyes. “I thought about whacking him with a hammer, but then I wouldn’t have had anyone to talk to. I’ve got food and shelter and there’s a shitload of guns down in the bunker, but I can’t get them.”
Seyfert perked up. “Guns?”
“Yeah, like a vault full or something. The security guy’s…” Bob swiveled in his chair and studied the monitor, he touched the screen indicating a dead man in a blue uniform, “right there! He has the keys.” Bob touched the screen to indicate which man had the keys.
43
Colonel Bourne had a gray phone receiver in his hand and was looking at a printed sheet of numbers at the base of the camera monitors when Phil sauntered in. The colonel casually glanced at the man as he moved toward the small group. “Where’s Dallas?”
Phil stopped with his hands behind his back. “Shit-kicker heaven.” He drew the suppressed Walther PPK and shot the soldier three times center-mass. Bourne collapsed against the monitor table and fell to the floor, clutching his chest. Rick and Anna went for their weapons, but Phil beat them to the draw. “Don’t. Drop them and kick them away, hands on your heads.” They did as they were told.
Phil turned to Bourne who was gurgling and trying to pull his own weapon. “Traitor,” he said, and shot the dying man once more in the forehead. He raised the gun and pointed it at the shocked scientists. “Same gun James Bond uses.”
Brenda had the back of her hand to her mouth, Linda was sobbing. “Phil, what have you done?” demanded Ravi.
“My duty. Now it’s time for you to do yours.” Phil stepped over Bourne’s lifeless body and grabbed the dangling receiver with his left hand. He briefly depressed the phone hook with the tip of his suppressor, and then began dialing, “Sir, it’s Lynch. Yes, sir, the colonel has been sanctioned. Three of use, maybe one more that was already here. Yes, sir, two SEALs on the level below me, and four targets above with the LAV, plus two civvie hitters. Roger that, sir, I’ll be waiting.”
“Where’s Dallas, you son of a bitch?”
“Dead. I’m sorry about that, I liked him. He was one of those dangerous-type personalities though, and big. Damn that man was big. Hopefully when your SEAL buddies stick their heads up through the elevator hatch, he’ll bite them off.”
Anna was quietly seething. “You bastard! We saved you. Dallas saved you, and…”
“Save it, girl-scout, you didn’t do shit. I could have left MIT at any time. My mission was to keep an eye on her,” he nodded toward Brenda, “and get her here when the time came. Don’t for one second think that I needed you. I know what your little group is all about, and I know what your commander was going to do with the…” Phil paused as he caught a glimpse of something in the monitors, “Oh shit.” The monitor switched to a different picture automatically, and he pressed the CAMERA button three times until he got back to the view of the parking lot in front of the main structure. The LAV was backing up to the building as a massive swarm of undead beat at the chain-link gates. The ones in the front were sizzling and popping against the electricity as it flowed through the fence and into them, the ones in the back pushing against their dead comrades. The fence was buckling fast. Wilcox and Stenner were running into the facility at top speed.
Phil raised his pistol. “Don’t move.” He picked up the phone and dialed again, “This is Lynch. Sir, the compound is about to have a shitload of company. Yes, sir. I can’t tell, but there are more than a few hundred. Yes, sir. Roger that, Viper inbound. ETA? Copy. Thank you, sir.” He hung the phone up and wiped his sleeve across his brow. “Change of plans. You five come with me, I’m going to get you to a more secure location down a couple of levels. Help is on the way. Hands on your heads and move back to the computer lab, we’re going to get some equipment and go down a level until the cavalry arrives. Oh, and I’m one of the good guys.”
“What about the men up top?” demanded Rick.
“Bad day for them, now move.” Phil gestured with his pistol to get them going, and the five put their hands on their heads and moved out the door. Phil picked up Rick’s M4, following. As he walked out the door, a giant fist impacted the side of his head and he went flying two meters down the corridor, his weapons clattering to the floor.
“I hate elevator shafts, you sumbitch! Uh, sorry ladies, m’ language suffers some when I get angry.”
Anna threw herself around Dallas and hugged him, crying, as Rick picked up the M4 and held it on Phil. Anna backed up a step, then launched a jab at Dallas’s shoulder, “Don’t die again!”
“Ow! I jus’ fell down a damn elevator shaft, woman!” Dallas spit blood. “See?”
Rick put his fingers on Phil’s neck then backed up quickly. “Holy shit, hillbilly, you killed him.”
“He pissed me off.”
Phil’s right foot began to twitch. Anna picked up the PPK and shot Phil above the right eye. “James Bond my ass.” She looked at Rick and Dallas. “Pissed me off too.”
The scientists were aghast, Dallas was all smiles.
“What are you smiling about, you crazy Texan?”
“Just figgered out I ain’t a scared o’ heights no more.”
44
The undead that were pressed against the fence hissed and popped, their brothers pushing behind them. The electricity was a deterrent to living foes, but dead ones just held on until their brains cooked away, unable to understand why they were catching fire.
The entire rest of the team was incommunicado. Stark and Keleher couldn’t raise anyone inside the structure, but they may be down a few stories if what the nerds said was true. The fence was buckling and wouldn’t hold for long, and there were a lot of Limas wanting in. A lot. Stark sent Wilcox and Stenner running back inside to quickly provide intel to the team in the facility.
As the fence came down, all Stark could think was that the aroma of cooking dead people smelled absolutely fantastic, and he had never wanted a steak as much as he did right now. The red lights on the chain-link posts failed and Stark looked at Keleher. “We are in a world of shit, Army.”
Keleher sighed. “Well they can’t get us in here Navy, but we won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”
Stark smiled. “It’s okay, I got a deck of cards. Wanna run over some pus bags?”
“Indeed I do.”
Stark put the LAV in low and the armored behemoth rumbled forward. The rotted carcasses of the dead came apart at the seams as they impacted the front of the vehicle and were crushed and torn asunder when the eight-wheeled monster rolled over them. The men could hear the thuds of dozens of fists on the exterior of the hull.
Stark threw it in reverse and backed up, crushing all in his path, but more continued to pour through the breach in the fence. The electricity must have ceased as well because the creatures against the chain link were no longer sizzling.
The wheels began to slip in under two minutes, and Stark was happy that this hadn’t happened sooner. He put the LAV in park, and unbuckled his seat belt, putting his feet to the side and stretching. “Well, the cards are in…” Keleher watched the right side of Stark’s body disintegrate as the LAV shuddered and tore apart, armor-piercing incendiary rounds ripping through the top of the hull. He had a split second to wonder what the hell happened before shrapnel and rounds the size of railroad spikes shredded him to a bloody pulp. A Hellfire missile finished the job, leaving the LAV and a hundred or so undead in smoking ruins.