52
“I mean, really?” The Texan looked down the last elevator shaft, then back at Androwski. “There’s somethin’ wrong with ya, boy.”
“Radically,” answered the SEAL.
Anna shouldered her friend. “Thought you weren’t afraid of heights anymore, big guy?”
“That was easier t’say when I wasn’t lookin’ down another damn elevator shaft.”
“Seyfert, you and Stenner rear.” Seyfert was taken aback, but Androwski placated him by raising his hand, “I’m more worried about the bad guys with guns than the Limas. Cover us. The rest of us are going to climb down the shaft, Wilcox and I will drop into the elevator, Rick and Dallas follow quickly after, be as quiet as possible. Anna, you cover Ravi, Linda, Brenda, and Bob, but stay on top of the elevator until we call…” Bob raised his hand, Androwski looked at him questioningly.
“Can I stay up here? I really, really, really don’t want to go down there.”
“Bob, you might get killed down there, it’s true, but I’m telling you for an absolute God damned fact that this guy that’s coming will not let you live.”
“Okay. I’ll come.”
“Seyfert and Stenner will buy us some time, same as before, but only if necessary. I hope to have the bunker cleared before they have the courage to come down a level, but make no mistake, they will come, and this time they’ll be prepared when they open the elevator doors.”
“I’m shit out of SEMTEX anyway,” Seyfert said. “No C4 either. I don’t even have a firecracker.”
“As soon as I go in there,” he pointed at the empty hole, “no more talking. At all.”
Everybody nodded.
Radio and ammo checks were performed, and Androwski swung into the shaft, grabbed a rung and started down, the others following. When the group was on top of the steel box, the SEAL pulled a compact mirror on an extendable rod from his tactical webbing and extended it into the elevator. Moving it back and forth for a moment, he pulled it back up and packed it away. Putting his finger to his lips, he nodded, screwed his suppressor on to his MP5, and dropped quietly into the elevator, Wilcox following immediately. Rick and Dallas dropped in soon after.
They surveyed the area in front of them, a large granite lobby with exquisite stonework. Androwski stepped through the doors and scanned both directions before motioning for the others to follow. A small waiting area, with a lone undead woman, was to the left. She had her back to the small group, and the SEAL drew his knife. He dispatched her efficiently, noting that the door to a large common room was open, and several undead could be seen lurching about or standing still. Some looked to be seated, waiting. The place was a mess, with furniture overturned or smashed, and a quiet jukebox against the far wall with spinning silver CDs inside.
Rick and Wilcox appeared in cover formation with Dallas behind. The four men looked into the room. They backed up and out of sight.
The SEAL spoke in a low voice, “Rick, Wilcox and I will fire suppressed rounds until they catch on. Dallas, you provide close cover with the shotty. If they get too close, call it and move to point. Don’t move in front until you call it! I’ll fire a single shot into the jukebox to distract them, then fire at will down your firing lanes. If it looks like we’re going to get overrun, Wilcox, you’re in charge of closing this door, then we fall back to the elevator and get on top. Wilcox and I on one knee, Rick standing, Dallas cover. Wilcox, do not stand up until you call for clear and get a reply! Cans ready on three?”
The three men nodded, indicating they were ready, and the foursome moved as a unit back to the door. True to his plan, Androwski fired a single suppressed round into the juke box, which began to hiss slightly. The effect was immediate, and the things in the room began to shuffle toward the machine. The ones that had been sitting began to get up.
The living men began firing single shots at the dead ones, who began dropping where they stood. More dead began to appear from doorways, making their way to the popping juke box. A young dead woman stumbled and fell, and as she righted herself, her blood-red eyes looked directly into Private Wilcox’s soul. She gave a low throaty growl, and Wilcox ended her misery, but not before the jig was up. Several dead people turned and saw the men, and began to come for them. In only a few seconds, the entire mobile population of the bunker was on its way.
“Loading,” cried Wilcox.
Rick shot a man in jeans and no shirt, the thing’s spine visible through its empty chest cavity. Androwski dropped a bearded man whose scalp had been torn off, his bared skull making him appear bald. The SEAL switched targets and took out a young man with no hands, nubs of bone reaching toward the men. Androwski clicked empty. “Loading!”
Wilcox began firing again, and eliminated threats to the left as they approached. Rick scored eight head shots before he missed and his round hit a fire extinguisher, the contents discharging quickly in a powerful gust of powder. More than twenty creatures were down, when Rick called that he was reloading.
“Dallas, move up! Wilcox, be ready with that door!”
Rick and Dallas switched places and all sound was drowned out by the bass roar of the shotgun. The Texan fired into the crowd obliterating skulls with buckshot.
“I’m loaded,” yelled Rick over the din of Dallas’s weapon. Most of the creatures were down, but there were still some in the room and more were coming from the antechambers and doorways.
A shell jammed in the ejection chamber of the shotgun, and Dallas looked at Androwski. “They’s all spread out!” He passed his weapon to a confused Wilcox, and drew his rebar with his right hand and his suppressed sidearm with his left. “Cover me if they get too close, we needs t’ save ammo.”
Dallas strolled into the room and stove in the head of a dead man in blue BDUs. He raised his pistol and fired at another, the thing’s head snapping back as it caught the round under the nose, and then the big man swung the metal pole in a sideways arc nearly decapitating a third undead with the rebar. He heard a hissing growl to his rear left, and he spun to face it, but Wilcox put it down with a single shot. The Texan dealt with three more stragglers, and there were only breathing men in the room.
“Let’s get these doors closed,” the SEAL pointed at the various exits from the room, “and we can check the other rooms one at a time. Wilcox, get the civvies down here too, and figure out if we can seal that elevator door somehow. Dallas, you’re with Wilcox. ”
“Roger that, sir.”
“You got it, Andy.”
Dallas and the kid moved off, following orders. “This place is a mess,” Rick said. “There’s contaminated…goo everywhere.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to clean it up. Don’t get any on you if you can help it. Let’s get this door first, you cover.”
Rick and the SEAL moved to the door and they closed it in short order. They moved to the second of six doors and a dead woman stumbled out and into Androwski before either of the men could do anything. She latched on to him and tried to bite him as they went down. She missed her first attempt, and raised her head back for another go, when Rick thumped her in the head with the butt of his M4. She fell to the side, and Androwski scrambled backward. Rick raised his rifle to shoot her, but another undead woman lurched out of the same door and grabbed the barrel of his rifle. The thing pulled the barrel toward her and Rick fired two rounds into its upper chest, one below the right collar bone, the other center mass. Neither round had the desired effect, and the creature pulled the rifle to the side and lunged at the fresh meat. Rick let go of his weapon and fought the woman off as Androwski stood and aimed his MP5SD3, “I don’t have a shot!”
Rick didn’t answer, as he continued to fight the zombie who had him. She had managed to grasp his right wrist and his tac-webbing, her grip was like iron. The thing that had initially grabbed the SEAL grabbed at his ankle and latched on to the pant leg of his BDUs. He shot her in her snarling face, and took a quick two steps forward using the butt of his rifle to imitate what Rick had done moments before. The thing’s head snapped to the right, but she didn’t let go, and had begun to growl. The SEAL put his suppressed weapon to her head and squeezed off a single round. She let go of Rick immediately, and dropped to the floor, but not before two more undead stumbled from the door, and another from another door.
“Shit, back up! This is getting out of hand.”
Both men hurriedly moved back to better assess the situation, as more undead staggered out into the common room. The men took them down with single shots, and soon it was quiet again. Androwski looked at Rick. “You know we have to try closing those doors again.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to shine my light in them from ten feet away first. Then I’m going to let you close it while I cover you. From ten feet away.”
“Pussy.”
Rick smiled. “
Tactical
pussy.” The men closed four of the six doors when Wilcox and Dallas returned with the rest of the party. Seyfert and Stenner were with them. Stenner’s face was ashen.
There was a thump on the back of the fifth door shortly after the duo closed it, and when Rick shone his light down a long hall through the sixth door, several forms lurched toward them. Androwski was about to shut the door when Rick stopped him. “Hold on, let’s get those ones from here.”
“Good call,” the SEAL replied, and the two men fired several rounds down the dark corridor before they closed the door. The thumping continued behind door number five.
“Okay, we can talk at normal levels now,” began Androwski. “Anything that was down here already knows we’re here. Be extremely careful about getting any of these fluids on you. I don’t think we’ll be able to use this room much until we bleach the shit out of it.”
“That won’t work anyway,” said Brenda. “The virus isn’t a normal virus.”
Bob shook his head, “I’m still not buying your alpha wave theory, Doc.”
Brenda became heated immediately. “It doesn’t matter what you believe, we—”
“Okay, stow it. We can worry about that later.” Androwski looked at Seyfert. “What’s the word from upstairs?”
Stenner and Seyfert looked at each other, then back at the chief. “We, we ah, should probably talk about that in the cone of silence.”
“Honestly, I’m too damn tired.” He pointed at the scientists. “They’re going to find out anyway, so spit it out.”
“We checked the monitors before we came down this shaft…”
“Yeah, and?”
“And we’ve got a hundred Limas at least two levels above, where the labs are.”
“So they got the spook, but they can’t get down here, that’s good news.”
Seyfert and Stenner looked at each other again.
“What?” Androwski demanded.
Stenner looked scared. “We were looking at the Limas wondering how they all got in the labs so fast, when we saw one of them pushing through the crowd. He was wearing a black T-shirt and sunglasses, and he…”
“He looked at the camera, smiled, and fucking flipped us off,” Seyfert finished.
“This is not possible,” Ravi said.
Rick sighed. “It is.”
Everyone looked at Rick.
“He’s right,” agreed Dallas. “I seen it too. Guy named Billy could walk right pas’ them pus bags an’ they wouldn’t s’much as look at ‘im. Course Billy was a lil’…off.”
“We’ll need to talk about this later. Right now, we need to seal this elevator so this guy can’t bring his dead pals down here on top of us.”
“Well, that’s easy.” Everyone looked at Bob. “This is a nuke bunker.” Blank stares. Bob rolled his eyes, walked over to an open panel and pushed a button. A second panel, next to the elevator door slid open. A small wheel with a red handle was recessed into the wall, as was a keypad.
“This place,” he spread his arms wide, “was made for
important
people. The powers that be didn’t want anybody freaking out and trying to leave if the surface was irradiated, and they certainly didn’t want anybody coming in. If we turn this wheel, a big steel door will close from the ceiling down. I don’t know how thick it is, but it will keep out the zombies. We need to find Dr. Crisp, and Major Mello’s bodies. They have the keys to activate this door.” Bob pointed to the keypad where two round key holes were evident. “I gotta tell you though, once the steel drops, it locks in place, and can’t be raised again for, like, ten years or something. There’s enough food and water down here to last us.”
“Gotta be another way out of here,” Wilcox said, looking around.
“If there is, I was never told about it, and I was one of those guys who kinda knew about that stuff.”
“You are forgetting a vital piece of information,” Linda said. “All of our equipment is upstairs. We still need to work.”
“Not all of it,” Ravi said, and put down the heavy backpack full of hard drives.
Androwski stepped in the elevator and looked up. The hatch was still open, and he could see light from the floor above. He stepped back into the ante room. “Can’t work if you’re dead. Find those keys, there’s no way to close this door and keep it closed from the outside.” Thumping continued from some of the closed doors in the common room, everyone looked in that direction. “And we have more work to do.”