~46~
By Cutter’s estimation, most of the five minutes still remained before the explosives would go off. Based on the size of the horde, though, five minutes wasn’t going to be nearly enough. The new horde was quickly becoming a teeming mass of arms and legs and terrible snarling faces. But he knew a little more about them now. They were still humans, essentially. It was just that damn artifact or device or whatever the hell it was that held them in thrall. If he could destroy it, they might—
It was such an obvious, stupid answer. He should have tried it earlier. He cursed himself and prepared to retrieve the case from Dr. Martinez and destroy the thing once and for all.
He took a step and nearly dropped to the ground. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. He flinched and hunched over.
It had been just in the nick of time.
One of the same zombies that attacked Wayland had scrambled its way across the gritty mineshaft floor and was trying to bite at Cutter’s ankle. He raised his booted foot and slammed it down hard on the thing’s head, causing it to still.
Rolling his shoulder to test it, he found it would still move relatively well—
but it sure hurt like hell.
Fortunately, the bullet had passed through flesh only, and while it had done considerable damage, it had not done enough to completely disable him. Gauge had somehow also regained his feet and was wobbling there unsteadily. Morgan was the only one that appeared relatively unscathed by the unfolding chaos of the past hour.
“Get that gun,” Cutter barked at her as he braced himself against Gauge to keep both of them vertical.
Morgan went for the gun without hesitation, scooping up the MP5K that had come to rest in front of the twin zombies. Cutter made his way over to Wayland’s corpse and snatched up the man’s pistol in his left hand. The gun turned out to be a relatively tiny .38 snub nose Chief’s Special revolver. That was it. That was all the firepower they had to get through the zombies and to the exit.
Not nearly enough.
“Can you shut off those explosives?” he asked Morgan while steadying Gauge’s large frame. Satisfied that the big man would remain vertical, he hurried to help Dr. Martinez regain her feet as well.
“Maybe,” she said after some consideration.
He glanced both directions, wondering if he should buy her time to disarm the explosives, or just tell them to get the hell out of Dodge. Since none of them could fire a weapon, it was all going to be up to her either way.
And, without delay, he made another decision and another plan, knowing it would probably be his last, but he trusted her completely to carry it out. He knew she would deliver.
Indicating toward the sub-machine gun, he said, “You’ll just have to clear us a path so we can get the hell out of here.”
She did not appear overly optimistic.
“That’s a heck of a lot of zombies, Jack. I’ve never fired one of these things before at anything other than paper.”
“You’re smart, Morgan. Figure it out. I trust you. Completely. Utterly. Without question. Got that?”
She nodded and picked up the MP5K and two extra magazines she found on the guy. She flipped the strap over her head and leveled the business end of the barrel at the approaching horde.
Cutter let her be and stumbled over to check on Dr. Martinez. She was injured and bleeding from where she’d been hit in the abdomen, but the damage did not appear immediately life-threatening.
“Stay with me, Doc,” he said. “I plan to get us all out of here. You and I haven’t even had our first date yet. It’d be a real shame to miss it.”
She smiled at him as he lifted her to her feet. It hurt like hell to move even a fraction of an inch, but he forced himself to continue. He was certain the agony was nearly unbearable for her as well. Bending over while supporting her weight, he swept up the metal case containing the artifact, and they both hurried back to join Morgan as quickly as they could amble the ten-yard distance.
“Two minutes, maybe three left,” he told Morgan, “so don’t be picky about target selection. Just clear us a path we can get through.” She obviously knew what he meant. When the timer expired, the entire mountain would come crashing down right on top of them and squish them like bugs on a windshield.
Dr. Martinez tripped, and all her weight fell on Cutter. His shoulder screamed in protest. She recovered, and he bent forward, gritting his teeth as he dragged her along beside him. He felt that the weight of the metal case was just a bit too much and almost let go of it because it was slowing them down.
“Don’t,” she said, as if she had read his mind. “We need to bring it back and study it. We need to prevent this from every happening again.”
Nodding his agreement, he held on to the case. He knew she was right. Just as his wife had been right. They needed to know more about it. He understood that now. He was certain his wife had the best of intentions for keeping the artifact, and that was what she had died for. If they figured out the secret to the thing, perhaps countless lives could be saved if another was ever uncovered.
Destroying it would be a mistake.
A tragic mistake.
The pain in his shoulder was growing worse. He could barely support the weight of Dr. Martinez any longer. To his surprise, Gauge came alongside, also stumbling, and Cutter half-wondered if Gauge had become a zombie himself. He had not spoken a word in some time. Then the big man stumbled forward to stand beside Morgan. He started whispering to her, but the rising noise coming from the moaning zombies blocked out whatever he was saying. Cutter just couldn’t hear the conversation, but he was fairly certain what the big man was telling her. And, whatever it was, it had the desired effect. Morgan raised the tiny MP5K like she owned it. Her back stiffened, and she widened her stance and prepared to open fire. Cutter knew it was going to be loud, and without the earbuds in place, if he got too close to her, he’d go partially deaf for the next hour or so—
if I manage to live that long.
Morgan opened up with a spray of hellfire. Lead belched from the barrel of the gun in rapid succession and tore into the heads of approaching zombies. Cutter could almost count the impacts as bullets knocked the zombies backward in a bloody spray that clouded the scene in a pink mist. Soon, he couldn’t tell which were incapacitated zombies and which still remained a threat.
Three seconds later, the gun stopped. It had fired the entire magazine. Morgan quickly inspected the gun, and then raised it and tried to fire.
Nothing.
Gauge yelled something at her, and she fumbled another full magazine out of her pocket, struggled with the release, and swapped the full one with the empty one. She tried to fire again.
Nothing.
She checked the gun again as Gauge struggled to reach her. Right as he did, she figured out the issue and clicked the bolt forward and flicked the selector switch. Then she raised the gun and fired a single-shot, dropping the nearest zombie. She fired again, sweeping to the left.
Another dead zombie. Another.
Her selective firing was having the desired effect and working like a snowplow in a storm. She continued to advance and meet the enemy, putting lead in heads, and parting the horde right down the middle.
Then Cutter noticed something odd. The creatures were no longer coming at her directly. They were pushing each other aside to get to him. And it was then that he realized what they really wanted—the artifact. And that simple fact was something he knew he could use against them.
He pushed forward, pulling Dr. Martinez along beside him. He reached Gauge, and the big man looked at him with confusion.
Cutter mouthed, “Save her.”
Gauge’s eyes widened in surprise as he took the weight of Dr. Martinez against his own stumbling form and somehow, together, they were able to keep up with Morgan, who was clearing the way forward with single-shot head busters.
Scanning those remaining, Cutter realized that the host was too big to get through without significantly more firepower. If he continued with Morgan, Gauge, and Dr. Martinez, the entire horde would collapse around them as the things went for the artifact. And, as soon as Morgan ran out of ammunition, they would all be taken down, and turned into more of those things.
Stopping, Cutter fell back with the metal case containing the artifact in hand. He raised it and shook it mockingly at the horde as he retreated another step. He continued backing away on his heels, and the ocean of zombies spread out and closed off his only remaining path to safety.
But his final plan was working. The zombies were focusing on him, and that would let the others escape.
He kept backpedaling all the way to the top of the lift and stopped at the threshold of the elevator shaft. One glance up at the explosives strapped to the top of the metal girder assembly told him everything he needed to know. The detonators did not have any flashing lights or blinking LEDs. They just sat there, invisible timer ticking away.
His internal clock told him he had less than a minute remaining in his life. This was where he would make his final stand. Here he would die just as his wife had died, buried under millions of tons of rock. He’d die like Colonel Suvorov had died, only without a final cigarette. He was neither frightened by the prospect of death, nor overly saddened by where he might end up. Sharon had died so needlessly. At least he would die for a purpose. Maybe he’d even get to see her again.
And that was good.
I’m a lucky man.
He had the opportunity now to do one final good deed before he had to account for all his sins. While that might not completely square him with the man upstairs, it might be just enough to squeeze him past St. Peter.
In his mind, his score was settled—
paid in full.
He glanced down the elevator shaft and then back at the approaching zombies and grinned broadly. As they closed in on him, he opened the case and let the artifact fall out of the padded interior.
He watched it fall away.
The silvery bar caught the light coming from the spotlight above and glinted all the colors of the rainbow as it went tumbling down into the abyss.
~47~
Cutter ignored the artifact falling away and turned back to watch the zombies as they grew closer. That minute that was left to him was taking far longer than he would have it wished it to.
I’m ready. Jesus, make up my dyin’ bed.
With an icy realization, he knew that the zombies would reach him before the explosives ever went off. But it would all be over soon enough. Even if they turned him into one of those things, the explosion would vaporize him, and the entire mountain would collapse and bury him and all of those terrible things along with him.
Resurrection, my ass.
The timer in his head told him he had thirty seconds remaining as the first of the zombies grew close enough to smell. They did not stink, per say, they mostly smelled of damp earth. Cutter held up his hands, palms first, with the insane idea that he would be able to stop them with the gesture, but they did not stop. They did not even slow.
But then they—
The eyes that had held such satanic evil before suddenly cleared and arms dropped to sides and mouths closed, and confusion broke out among the horde. It was as if the creatures had suddenly become human again. Some fell to their knees, some simply collapsed into heaps on the ground. A few raised their hands to their heads and broke out in wild screams. But most just stood there blinking as their eyes returned to normal.
One of the former zombies, what looked to be a stooping old man, led the way forward and stopped in front of Cutter. The old man stooped over in front of him grabbed him by the wrist and raised his left hand in the air. The man twisted the open palm back and forth as if he were examining it.
Cutter blinked back at the old miner in confusion. Then the man let go and Cutter’s hand dropped to his side.
Twenty seconds,
flashed in his mind.
Cutter realized then that he still had a chance to escape. With an increasing pace, he began pushing his way through the confused mass, moving faster and faster, using shoulders of the former zombies to push his way through their midst.
He stopped at the other side and spun around.
“
Come on!
” he shouted to the former zombies, who were merely teeming people now lost in the wheels of confusion. “
Come on! Let’s all get the hell out of here!
”
But in a moment of dread, he realized that none of them spoke English. He started waving his arms, trying to get them to follow him, racking his brain to remember anything Colonel Suvorov had said to his men that got them to move.
He started jumping up and down and waving. None of the men were moving to follow him, nor were they paying him any attention whatsoever. They were too lost in surprise, staring at the backs of their hands, or their neighbors, jaws going slack.
He whistled and waved at them once more with both arms to come with him, ignoring the shooting pains coming from his battered body.
None followed.
He shouted and waved at them again, moving steadily backward on his feet toward the exit.
Nothing?
“Come on!” he yelled again.
Fifteen seconds.
With renewed vigor, he waved one final time.
A couple of the miners started in his direction.
“
Da!
” he shouted, remembering the one word he did know in Russian.
More began to follow him, but they were moving so slowly.
Too slowly.
“
Da!
” he shouted again, trying to wave his arms. The joyful feeling that he was about to save them all kept the pain at bay.
They started moving faster, and he noticed something new as well. Their eyes were no longer normal. They had changed back to that same red satanic gaze they had before, and their lips had once again drawn back to expose their stained teeth.
The horde continued to move faster and faster toward him, and he spun on his heel and ran his hardest, no longer looking at what chased after him. All he could see was the door ahead that led out of the mine and into the light.
He ran with everything he had left in him. His heart raced, and his lungs were laboring to expand well beyond normal capacity. Life-giving blood pumped to every muscle and cell of his tortured body. He pushed harder, wanting nothing more than to escape before the explosion went off.
He wanted to live.
Five seconds.
He sprinted for the steel double doors just ahead. He heard the zombie horde gaining on him from behind. They were moving as fast as he was now. He was not going to be fast enough. He just didn’t have it in him.
Four seconds.
The distance was just too great. He redoubled his efforts and a burst of pain shot through every corner of his body like he’d been struck by lightning.
Three seconds.
He wished again and again that he had never smoked, never drank, had taken better care of himself.
Two seconds.
The doorway was in sight. Morgan was standing there with the MP5K submachine gun, waving him through with one arm and getting ready to cover his retreat. They had made it. He would too. She backed away when he neared and propped open the door for him with her foot, leaving it wide open and ready.
One second—
He flung himself at the doorway like Superman taking flight—and flew through the threshold and smacked into the ground on the other side, skidding and painfully scraping away the skin on his hands and arms. He came to a stop and covered his head with his hands and clamped his eyes shut and anticipated the explosion.
Then—
nothing.
Morgan grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him away from the doorway he had flown through. It wouldn’t close fully because his foot was somehow blocking it. He scrambled on his hands and knees away from the shadow of the entryway and into the dawning sunlight of the day.
Was I wrong? Were the timers even set? Was Wayland full of shit?
He had just started to stand and brush the grit from his palms when the concussive wave from the explosion hit him like a sledgehammer from behind and flattened him against the concrete pathway leading to the mine entrance.
The massive initial explosion and secondary explosions of the collapsing mountain kept him flat on his stomach. He stayed low and pulled himself forward to be closer to Morgan and Gauge. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Dr. Martinez. She was also flat on her stomach. She was not moving. He tried to reach her but was hit with a heat that pressed against his back as flames pushed open the metal doors into the mine and an angry fireball roared out the doorway.
He remained on his belly for a few more seconds to recover as the world calmed around him. Then he rolled over. The earth still rumbled under him, but the bright sunlight warmed his face in a different kind of way from the flames, and the steam of his labored breathing created clouds of mist above him.
With what little he had left in him, he went to check on Dr. Martinez. When he got close to her, she turned her head and moaned something. He put a hand on her back and leaned nearer. His hearing was just about shot and would be for days. He waited for her to say something, but she just continued to groan.
Dull popping noises caused him to turn. He fell onto his backside and rubbed his face. His shoulder still hurt like hell, but all that fear juice pumping through his system had numbed away enough of the pain to make it tolerable.
Then he noticed all the soldiers and blinked away the confusion. At the doorway to what remained of the mine were soldiers.
A whole squad? Probably twenty or more.
They had pried opened the newly warped steel door he had come through and were tossing in bulky backpacks. Another line of soldiers stood about twenty feet off from the door. They were shooting anything that came through the threshold. Only a few of the remaining creatures actually tried to escape.
Cutter blinked a few more times. His eyes were not yet adjusted to the brightness of the day, but when his vision cleared, there was a man standing before him. The guy was blurred by the glare of the sun, but he recognized the man.
It was Anton Moray, the same guy who was paying them four-million dollars to retrieve the artifact. Moray said something, but Cutter could not understand him. The man repeated what he said, and Cutter watched the guy’s lips move, but still could not quite make out what was being said.
“What?” Cutter said as he shook his head and stuck a finger in his ear to clear it. Everything sounded as if he were underwater.
Moray stepped closer and asked with the harsh tone of insistence, “Where is it?”
“It’s gone,” Cutter said. He might have even shouted it.
The man sucked in his lips and nodded. He appeared accustomed to absorbing and processing bad news without overreacting. He signaled to one of the soldiers, and the entire squad backed away from the entrance and another set of explosions went off.
Cutter covered his head and turned away.
All those people. Those men. Those former miners.
They were all innocents, really.
He had seen them come back from the dead or undead or whatever the hell they had become. He was certain it had happened when the artifact had hit the bottom of the shaft and been destroyed. But the effects had only been temporary. Something seemed to have resumed control of those men again.
And the one old guy who let me go after looking at my hand?
What was that all about?
Cutter had no idea, but he thanked the guy nonetheless. It was all so senseless. The killing.
Too much death.
He wondered if he had just kept the thing, maybe someone could have found a way to save all those people.
Too late now.
Morgan came over and helped him to his feet and stood next to him.
“I owe you an apology, Mr. Cutter,” Moray said, still standing before him.
Cutter blinked and turned his left ear toward the man. It was working slightly better than his right. “Why?”
“I hired Mr. Wayland to oversee this operation. He failed me in so many ways. Once completed, he was expected to pay you and your team enough of a bonus that you would remain silent on what you had found here. I’m afraid I misunderstood his actual intentions. I am most disappointed in myself for allowing this to happen. So, if there is anything I can do for you, Mr. Cutter—anything at all—you have but to ask it of me.”
Anton Moray thrust out his hand, and hesitantly, Cutter offered his. The man had a firm grip and a steely look to his eyes, and in that brief window of time, Cutter realized down to his core that he could work for the man again and forgive him as well—even if the guy did look like a chimpanzee in a suit.
Moray didn’t linger. He spun and barked orders to the men around him, leaving Cutter standing beside Morgan Crow. Still a bit stunned by everything, he let her walk him over to where Gauge and Dr. Martinez were being looked after by a medic. The woman working on Dr. Martinez took one look at him and pointed to the grassy patch of dirt next to Gauge. The poor woman appeared as if she were handling far more than she had signed up for.
Cutter put his hand on his injured shoulder. The pain was returning in waves, and he winced to absorb it, but he did not cry out, nor would he. While he’d failed to retrieve the artifact, he realized he would have had to sacrifice something far more important to him to have kept it.
He glanced over at Dr. Martinez. Something in the back of his mind had him wondering all along what her game had been and whether or not she would betray him in the end. It probably would have been the expected thing, but he was sure glad she hadn’t.
He glanced up at Morgan.
She asked him in what seemed almost a whisper, “So after all that, what do we call ourselves? I don’t think we are a salvage and recovery team any longer. Maybe we call ourselves something cool like Zombie Team Alpha? Hashtag-ZTA maybe?”
“Yeah,” Cutter replied, yawning and working his jaw back and forth, “I like that.”