Jim nodded and moved his hand to the switch that controlled the door on the far side of the chamber as he said, “Let me know when you’re ready, Professor.”
Hawkins was about to give the order to proceed when someone started paging Doctor Connors on the intercom system.
Hawkins turned to Cain and asked angrily, “What in the hell are your idiot people paging Connors for?”
“They don’t know we have her,” Cain explained. “As far as they’re concerned, she’s still working in her lab.”
“Who in the hell would be looking for her?” Hawkins asked.
Holding up his hands, Cain said, “How should I know?”
“Whoever it is, go upstairs and get rid of them,” Hawkins ordered. Turning to Jim, he said, “Open the door.”
***
After climbing into the coal chute, Major Cage braced his knees against its metal sides, releasing the pressure to slide a few feet before halting himself. After scanned the opening with his rifle and seeing nothing, he repeated the maneuver. When he was only three feet from where the chute opened into the basement, he took a deep breath and let himself slide all the way in.
Dropping down the three feet to the dirt floor, he raised his M16 as he whipped his head back and forth in search of the dead. Seeing only the half-rotted wooden walls on either side of him that made up the coal bin, he cautiously moved toward its opening ten feet in front of him. Not hearing any of the dead whine at his presence, he wondered if there were any left. From behind him, he heard a soft thud followed seconds later by another. Without having to turn around, he knew it was Fagan and Steve joining him.
Peeking around the corner, Cage could see a scattering of broken furniture and old tools in the green glow of the night-vision goggles. A soft series of whines came to him, making him look closer at the clutter to find its source. Feeling a presence behind him, he motioned for Fagan and Steve to join him. The coal bin was only six feet wide, causing the three men to stand sideways as they half-crouched in its opening.
In a whispered voice, Cage said, “I can hear them but I can’t spot them.”
Motioning toward the wall to their right, Fagan whispered back, “It looks like the basement is L shaped. They must be around the corner.”
After scanning the numerous places where the dead could jump out at them as they made their way to the far end of the cellar, Cage ordered, “We’ll move forward in a triangle formation. I’ll take point and you two cover me. I’ll watch where the basement turns the corner so you two concentrate on our rear and our flanks.”
Taking a step forward, Cage froze in place as a blinding flash of light whited out his night-vision goggles. Before they went blank, he caught a glimpse of writhing shadows cast across the floor and walls at the far side of the basement. The whining voices of the dead started up, echoing against the block walls. His blood ran cold at the sound, but at least it told him that the dead were congregated around the corner. Whipping off his goggles, he could see the vertical band of light narrow and disappear, leaving him completely blind.
Realizing that the light had come from a door opening and closing, he put his goggles back on and waited impatiently for them to adjust. The noise of scratching and scraping on metal joined in with the whine of the walking corpses, letting him know that the dead were pawing at the door. Being completely blind, this did little to appease his terror that they were creeping up on him in the dark
His fear ebbing in direct proportion to the green glow of the basement coming back into focus, Cage stepped forward when his vision was completely clear. Although careful to give any obstacles a wide berth, he quickly made his way to the corner. Looking around it, he spotted over a dozen dead pawing and clawing at the far wall. Looking closer, he could see that he had been right, they were clustered in front of a door.
***
Hawkins watched with clinical interest as the two reanimated corpses entered the glass enclosed room. Heedless of the screams coming from Cindy, and the barely audible curses coming from Heather and Doctor Connors, he said to the dead, “Come along, my little creatures. Come and get a quick treat.”
Dressed in rags, the two zombies swayed back and forth for a few seconds. Black blood seeped from scratches and bites running down the first one’s arm, while the second showed no sign of injury. The only way anyone could tell it was dead was by its bluish-grey skin color. Hawkins was pleased with this, having insisted on having only the best specimens to experiment on. This group in particular he had actually cultivated by letting the dead infect healthy humans without letting the victim be too badly damaged.
After having spent days locked in the dark, the two zombies recovered quickly from the burst of light, looking around for only a few seconds before spotting Cindy’s arm sticking through the glass. Like the others back in the holding chamber, they had sensed living flesh on the other side of the door and had clustered in front of it, waiting for it to open. Creatures of habit and instinct, they knew that when the door opened, they would receive some type of food. Whether it was raccoon, deer or human, they didn’t discriminate.
Focused completely on the very reason for their existence, they let out loud whines and lurched toward Cindy’s arm. Reaching it at the same time, the two creatures lunged forward and sank their teeth into the proffered meat. Ignoring their prey’s pitiful screams, they simultaneously bit into the soft flesh of her inside forearm and upper bicep.
Cindy’s cries of terror became shrieks of pain as she fought to break loose from the chair holding her in place. Hawkins ignored this as he leaned in close to watch the initial flow of blood from her wounds. Not wanting the dead to do too much damage, when he saw the skin break and the teeth of the dead sink all of the way in,
he called for Jim to turn the Malectron on.
Everyone in the observation area felt their hair stand on end as the device was activated. Its effects were swift, causing the whines of the dead to turn into moans of pain as they were repelled across the room. Pawing at the air, they stood with their backs to the wall as they tried to force themselves toward the food still struggling against its bindings.
Never tiring of this reaction, Hawkins stood watching them with glee until he was interrupted by Jim saying, “Doctor, one of the specimens took a good chunk of flesh out of the test subject’s bicep. She’s bleeding quite profusely.”
Turning his attention to where Cindy had passed out in the chair, Hawkins could see blood running from her upper arm to soak her shirt in a growing stain of red. Frowning, he tried to gauge whether or not she would bleed out before his experiment was complete. After a few seconds of watching the heavy flow, he gave a huff of displeasure and said, “Pull her out and put a compress on the wound. The one on her forearm doesn’t look that bad, so leave it open where I can observe it. Keep it wiped clean so I can watch for the first signs of her blood blackening if she turns. When you’re done, turn up the power on the Malectron. I want to see its full affects one more time.”
Jim nodded and unfastened the chair from the brackets securing it to the floor. Rolling it a safe distance from the hole in the safety glass, he retrieved a compress from his medical kit and tried to wrap it around the little girl’s bicep. Finding himself restricted by the straps securing her arm to the cross brace on the chair, he released the three holding her right arm. Cindy moaned as she regained consciousness, rolling her head up to look at him as he finished tightening the bandage.
Avoiding her eyes, Jim said, “Suck it up, kid. If you live through this, you’ll be a part of medical history.”
“It hurts.” Cindy rasped as her body tightened in agony from her wounds.
In a stern voice, Jim said, “Like I said, you need to suck it up. I can’t give you anything for the pain until the experiment is complete. Now keep your arm elevated until I get back.”
With her pain channeling into anger at how she was being hurt and abused, Cindy glared at Jim as he walked over to a black box sitting on the control panel. Despite the thickness of the glass in the testing chamber, she could hear the moaning of the dead grow louder as they shrank even further into the corner when he adjusted a knob on it. Looking down to where her fellow captives lay bound on the floor, she locked eyes with Heather. Cindy didn’t comprehend why the woman kept looking down at her right leg and then back up to her and nodding, but then she understood.
***
With the amount of noise the dead were making, Major Cage had to draw back from the corner and raise his voice as he said, “I want Staff Sergeant Fagan on my right and Steve on my left. Double tap every target. Steve, I also need you keep an eye on our six in case we did pass any of the shitheads and they come up behind us. We go on the count of three.”
Looking back around the corner as he prepared to say, ‘one,’ Cage saw that his voice had attracted half a dozen of the dead. Only feet away, they were coming toward him at a full run. Without hesitation, he jumped into the twelve foot opening while shouting, “Three.”
Fagan and Steve rounded the corner and took in the situation in a millisecond. Not having time to get into position, both men raised their rifles and opened fire at the oncoming Zs. Brains, pieces of skull and black ochre flew into the air as the dead danced a final jig of death. With this immediate threat eliminated, it gave the three men free reign to deal with the dead clustered around the door. Their noise suppressors coughed out a deadly rain of lead that quickly dropped the reanimated corpses clustered at the far end of the basement.
Cautiously moving forward as their night-vision goggles adjusted from the muzzle-flash of their weapons, they stopped and kicked each corpse to make sure it was dead before moving on to the next. Only once did they have to fire into the skull of any of the Zs, a woman that had been hit twice in the lower face and knocked down before being pinned by the bodies falling around her. As Steve approached, she lunged toward him and worked her shattered jaw in a gnashing motion until he ended her suffering with a well-placed shot. When they were sure they had exterminated all the dead, they reloaded in preparation to storm the rest of the basement.
Reaching the door first, Cage laid his hand on it and said, “Its metal but I think it’s only wood core with some sheet metal laid over it for reinforcing.” Pointing toward the top of the jamb, he added, “They’ve also got a big-ass bolt securing it up at the top and an operating arm to open and close it.”
“How do you want to proceed, Major?” Fagan asked.
Anxious to get to Heather, Steve replied, “Like this,” and emptied the magazine into the bolt securing the door and the motor that controlled the arm.
The bullets ripped through the metal and pushed the door open a few inches, letting in bright light. All three of the men whipped off their goggles and blinked rapidly to adjust their eyes. Still seeing white spots, Steve nudged the door with the toe of his boot and looked through the opening, not noticing how every hair on his body stood almost straight up. The first thing visible was a glass wall with a man standing on the other side of it. To his right he could see through another wall where someone bent over Cindy as he tied a bandage around her arm. Not sure who they were, he raised his rifle but held fire.
And then he spotted Heather.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fort Redoubt:
Tick-Tock looked out over the sea of dead pushing against the walls of the fort. Glancing down the length of the wall, he could actually see it move in and out like some kind of breathing animal. In the illumination thrown by the lights circling the perimeter, he could see where the telephone poles buried in the ground were being slowly worked loose faster than the defenders could reinforce them. So far, there had only been a few minor breaches in their main line of defense, but there was no way it could hold forever.
Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the reanimated corpses broke through, Tick-Tock’s mind raced with ways to escape the coming carnage. Neither he nor Denise could fly, so that was out. A tunnel might work, but he didn’t think they had the time to dig one before the dead broke through. Looking at the three catapults in the courtyard, he knew they didn’t have the range to throw them over the dead to safety, and on top of that, even if they wrapped themselves in mattresses, the landing would probably kill them.
As he wracked his brain, he suddenly remembered overhearing Rick tell Steve that all the forts had pre-set escape routes. After looking down to where Denise napped with her back against the wall, and wondering how she could sleep with the constant screeching of the dead, he asked the two women next to him to keep an eye on her. Hefting his rifle as he gave one last look at the thousands of dead outside the wall, he went in search of the commander.
Checking the radio room first, Tick-Tock wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find Rick. The man was a hands-on leader, so he knew he would find him working with his people in the defense of the fort. Circling the inside perimeter of the encampment, he saw hundreds of people frantically working to keep the walls intact. Some were nailing whatever wood they could find across the poles to reinforce them, while those that were unable to do physical labor, used their body weight to counteract the push of the dead.
A crashing noise made his blood freeze, and he looked around wildly for where the dead had breached their defenses. Relaxing slightly when he saw it was only some workers dismantling the chow hall, Tick-Tock scanned the other buildings and saw they were also being stripped of all usable material. Nails were pulled from boards that would be used again to secure them to the wall in an ongoing battle to reinforce the only thing standing between them and a horrible death.