Wasteland Rules: A New Dawn (The World After Book 3) (7 page)

September 2, 2029

Stone Mountain Park, Georgia

   “Derek, Derek!” Said a voice that sounded like Rora’s.

   Those words and a shaking sensation were the first thing
he felt as he climbed out of the blackness. Rora’s face swam before his eyes as
he struggled to focus. Then, like a lightning bolt clarity struck him and he
remembered being tased. Derek instinctually moved to defend himself and grabbed
the person in front of him. His fist froze inches from Rora’s face as he
realized it was her.

   “Whoa!” She hissed at him.

   “Sorry, it was instinctual.” He whispered back. “Where
are we?”

   “We are in the Department of Homeland Security’s secret
base under Stone Mountain.” Rora informed him quickly as she worked on
releasing his leg restraints.

   “The mountain with the carving in the park in Georgia?”

   “That’s the one.” She replied as she glanced at her watch.

   “How did you get free?”

   She laughed. “They only took you; I’m here to get you
out.”

   Derek took a minute to process that before replying. “How
did you find me and how did you get here?”

   “We don’t have time for the whole story, our diversion
should be starting…right about…now.” She warned him.

   There was the sound of a small explosion and sirens began
to blare and red lights began to flash. Derek took a minute to look around the
small room he had been imprisoned in. The room had flat white walls with no
windows and only one door. The door was solid steel, painted the same flat
white, and did not have a window either. Video cameras were mounted inside
protective bubbles on the ceiling in each corner of the room. The only
furniture was the chair in which Derek had been restrained.

   As he climbed out of the chair he saw a medical
monitoring system and an IV set up with an automatic drip. Rora stood beside it
dressed in a lab coat disabling the machine. Derek stumbled slightly as he got
out of the chair; the drugs they must have using to keep him sedated were still
affecting him. He shook his head to try to clear it.

   “Give it a minute.” Rora told him. “Your system should
metabolize the drugs pretty quickly.”

   “How long have I been here?”

   “Three months…”She said as she poked her head out into
the hallway and looked around.

   “Wow. What happened while I was out?”

   “Later. We have to go now!” She ordered and slipped out
of the room.

   Derek followed right behind her. He realized he was
wearing a hospital gown and no shoes as soon as they exited. The cold draft he
felt only served to help wake him up. The cold painted concrete floor of the
hallway was especially bracing. He noticed Rora was wearing scrubs under the
lab coat and looked like the stereotypical scientist. A badge hung from her
coat pocket.

   “Hey. What about clothes for me?” He asked looking around.

   “I think you look great in that gown.” She joked. “If I
had known you were so worried about your clothes I would have brought a Born to
Fight t-shirt for you.”

   He laughed. “How about just some pants and boots?”

   “Take out the next guy we see and take his clothes.” She
suggested.

   “Sounds like a plan.” Derek said with a smile.

   Seconds later two gunmen rushed out of another room. They
looked startled to find a man in a hospital gown in the hallway and he could
see their eyes widen as they realized who it was. Surprisingly they didn’t try
to shoot him and instead tried to smash the butt of their rifle stock into his
face. Derek sidestepped the first man, grabbed his M4 carbine and smashed it
back into the gunman’s face. The man released the gun and collapsed backwards.

   The other man changed his mind on shooting and turned
towards Derek, raising the carbine as he turned. A vicious kick to the head
from Rora dropped him to the ground. Seizing the fallen man’s gun Rora fired a
burst into each man’s head, killing them instantly. Derek turned to her in
surprise.

   “What did you do that for?” He asked in confusion.

   “Rule #3.”

   “I’m not sure they are enemies.” Derek insisted. “They
didn’t kill me when they had the chance.”

   “Take that one’s clothes; he looks to be close to your
size.” Rora said as she pointed to the larger of the two gunmen.

   “Rora. What is going on here?” Derek asked seriously.

   “We’re getting out of here, that’s what’s going on.”

   “What else happened while I was out?” Derek wondered
aloud.

   “A lot happened; the world is a whole different place.
Now we need to quit talking and focus on fighting our way out.” Rora called
over her shoulder as she slowly crept down the hallway.

   Derek quickly stripped the man Rora had suggested and
found the clothes were a decent fit. He pulled the face mask up to conceal his
face and grabbed the remaining carbine. Quickly going through their gear he
followed Rule #18 and grabbed all their additional clips of ammo. Then he
followed after Rora as she slowly moved along the hallway.

   The hallway was bare concrete walls and a painted
concrete floor. Track lighting on the ceiling provided bright yellow light. The
alarms had shut off a minute earlier creating an eerie silence. They didn’t see
anyone, but now Derek could hear gunfire and screaming. Then he heard a familiar
snarling and howling.

   “What was the distraction?” He asked, fearing the answer.

   “They had Drinkers they were experimenting on. I set them
loose.” Rora informed him matter of factly.

   “What?”

   “The level below us was filled with cells full of
Drinkers and medical labs where they were dissecting them or injecting them
with something. I even saw baby Drinkers. Sick stuff.” She said disgustedly. “I
hacked the locking system to release them all. While the DHS guys are busy with
the monsters, we can escape.”

   Two more gunmen suddenly burst through a set of double
doors leading off the hallway in front of them. Rora gunned them down with a
sustained burst from her carbine. Derek cursed as he realized they were
fleeing, not attacking. A horde of Drinkers spilled through the doorway and
started feeding on the fallen men. Rora screamed as some of the beasts looked
up and saw the two of them standing there.

   Derek unloaded his entire clip into the bloody mouthed
fiends, the bullets ripping through their leathery skin and killing the small
pack. But more of them came pouring out, drawn by the gunfire and the screaming.
Rora turned and ran and Derek followed. The brown skinned beasts chased after
them, the monsters’ mouths already bloody from previous kills. They howled in
excitement as they chased after fresh blood; their claws making a terrifying
skittering noise as they ran across the concrete floor.

   Reloading as he ran, Derek fired under his armpit back
into the baying mass. He could hear some of the beasts fall, but there were too
many of them and the uninjured ones just trampled over the fallen ones in their
eagerness to get at Derek and Rora. There were so many they seemed to fill up
the hallway and he wasn’t going to violate Rule # 5 and waste ammo by killing a
couple, because it wouldn’t make a dent in their numbers. Glancing back it
looked like a wave of brown bodies full of snapping teeth and claws rushing
after them. The horde drew inexorably closer as Derek and Rora fled down the
concrete corridor.

   They passed by rooms with doors broken in and bodies
ripped apart inside. Several side corridors had gunmen in black holding back
mobs of the monsters with sustained gunfire; spent brass piled up on the floor
around them. But he knew it was a losing battle, there were just too many of
the creatures and they could sustain a lot of damage before falling. He knew
that from personal experience. He could almost feel the hot breath from their
drooling maws as the beasts got closer and closer.

   “In here!” Rora suddenly yelled and darted through a
doorway along the hall.

   Derek followed her in and they slammed the steel door
shut just in time. The monsters slammed against the door trying to get in at
their prey, but it held. The monsters outside howled and wailed in anger, but
eventually got hungry or bored and moved on looking for other prey. After they
left, Derek spared a glance around the room. His blood rushed in excitement
when he saw where they were; the armory! Rora must have memorized the floor
plans and the turns he had thought were random were designed to lead them here.

   Most of the weapons and ammo had been taken for the
defense of the base, but a few remained; as did boxes of ammo. He smiled as a
he grabbed an M-60E3 from the wall. The large light machine gun had fallen out
of favor because it was heavy and been replaced by the M-249 SAW, but it fired
much heavier 7.62mm rounds that had a lot more stopping power. Derek’s greater
strength enabled him to handle the weapon with ease and it would be the better
weapon against the Drinkers.

   “How many of those things are in here?” He asked Rora as
he grabbed several additional boxes of ammo.

   “Hundreds, maybe thousands. There was a whole other level
below the one I saw, and I think it was just containment rooms.” She told him
as she grabbed clips from a box.

   “Seriously? Are they insane?”

   “As I told you, they are conducting experiments on them.”
Rora explained. “It looks like they are trying to make them more aggressive and
breed faster. They are using testing some sort of virus on the Drinkers to make
that happen.”

   “That is sick, why would you do that?” Derek asked in
horror.

   “From what I could see they plan to release them inside
the U.S.T.G. to create chaos so they can launch a coup and have a traitor in
the government take over.” Rora informed him.

   “I wasn’t even aware the DHS still existed and now they
suddenly show up with a master plan? This is crazy.” He said, shaking his head
in amazement. “What did they want with me?”

   “I think they wanted to use your genetic enhancements on
the Drinkers.” Rora told him. “They took blood to try to reverse engineer the
process used on you.”

   “How did you find all this out?”

   “Augie has a lot more resources than we realized.” She
told him. “He must have been some sort of spy before the Collapse. He tracked
you to this facility.”

   “How did you get in?” Derek asked.

   “We watched the facility for a while until we discovered
they left at regular intervals to collect specimens. We ambushed one of the
details and took their places. I used the laptop in the vehicle to hack into
their system and changed the ID photos and memorized the layout. I also gave
myself full access. Then we just walked right in.” Rora explained.

   “Impressive.” Derek replied, genuinely impressed.

   “Thanks.” Rora said with a smile.

   “I would say we need to stop them, but I think they are
getting karmic justice in the form of your ‘diversion’ so let’s just get out of
here.” Derek said with emphasis.

   She laughed. “Agreed.”

   Rora stripped off the lab coat and pulled a tactical vest
over her scrubs. They both checked their weapons to make sure they were ready
and Derek grabbed the last couple of flash bang grenades in the armory. He
nodded towards the door and she put her hand on the handle. After a deep breath
she pulled it open and Derek readied himself to fire; but no Drinkers swarmed
in.

   “You lead.” Derek ordered her. “I know you memorized the
way out.”

   “I was thinking you should go first…” She said
hesitatingly. “You know, with your fast healing and all. Just follow my
directions as we go.”

   “Doesn’t matter to me; I’m going to kill everything in
our path. Remember to duck if I turn around and start shooting.” He warned with
a laugh.

   They headed out into the now empty hallway and starting
making their way out of the complex. Derek took point, keeping the large
machine gun pointed in front of him and maintaining an alert readiness. The
Drinkers or gunmen could threaten them at any time. Rora called out directions
and they progressed rapidly through the eerily quiet hallways. Bodies lay strewn
everywhere, Drinker and human. Black garbed gunmen and lab coat wearing
scientists were intertwined with the leathery brown bodies of the Drinkers.
There were bloody drag marks smeared on the floor at various points where the
creatures had dragged away their victims.

   “Did you see any Alphas in the holding area?” Derek said
in a brief moment of panic.

   “Thank goodness no.” Rora replied. “They only seem to be
collecting the regular Drinkers.”

   “That’s something at least.” He muttered with a small shiver
as he remembered the desperate fight in the old bank with the gigantic Alpha.

   Rora guided them through two levels before they
encountered anything. They were forced to go around several blocked doors and
up the stairwells since the elevators weren’t working.  Twice they hid in a
side room as Drinkers stalked by. Finally they came to a broad hallway that
seemed like the main hallway for the complex. It ended in steel double doors
with small reinforced glass windows.  Bloody tracks led right through the
doorway and through the doors they could hear howling, screaming, and gunfire.
Derek turned to go down another corridor, but she stopped him.

   “That’s the way out.” She said with resignation.

   “Of course.” He responded as he readied the machine gun.

   Looking through the windows they could see a cavernous,
wide open room with a raised ceiling. Support pylons appeared at regular
intervals throughout the room. At the far side, multiple steel rolling doors
sat closed preventing any escape. Along the walls were wheeled mechanics tool
boxes and several pumping devices, which he assumed were to gas up vehicles.
Derek could tell it was the main garage for the facility.