Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (17 page)

She rose to that. Her own experience being forced to do anything
was something he couldn’t know.

He must have seen the anger in her eyes. “No, please! I’m
trying to make you see there are a million ways this could go down,
but I truly want you as my partner. For God’s sake, I don’t
need more enemies.”

She fumed internally but didn’t know what to say. He was
speaking the truth, even if she hated him for his insinuation.

“I’m staying because I want to help you find Liam.
Once you two are together, and calmed down,” he said with a
test of mirth, “we can focus on helping your Grandma. She is
the most vulnerable of us all because she will stand out wherever she
is.”

“And then you want to run tests on her,” she said with
the remains of her anger.

“Yes. I’ll be honest about that. But this time I need
to take blood, not inject it. I know my word isn’t worth
anything to you, but on my honor that’s the truth. I believe
she can help us get this cure correct.”

“But we won’t have anywhere to do your research. We
can’t come back here, can we?”

“We’ll have to deal with that when we get there. Maybe
there’s a research lab where she is?”

He was fishing for her location. Torn whether to divulge the
information or not, she felt she wasn’t quite ready to trust
him. At the very least she wanted other people around when she told
him. That way he couldn’t drug her, or otherwise coerce her to
do his bidding. She didn’t think he was lying about what he was
telling her. It all added up in an insane way. And that’s what
troubled her the most.

You can’t trust him, girl. N-O, no!

Hayes stood to go out the door, but paused and turned back to her.

“Before we go, I have to ask. What do you see in that boy?”

Victoria had been prepared to leave, so it was about the last
thing she expected. “Uh, what?”

“Liam. It’s cute how you two found each other in the
disaster, but you don’t seem to have much in common, you know?
Classy girl in a black dress. An unkempt boy chasing after his
Great-Grandma.”

The situation came into focus. It was the middle of the night, in
a building that had been cleared by Hayes so he could conduct
‘somewhat-illegal’ experiments in peace. If he wanted to
take advantage of her, there wasn’t much she could do to stop
him, though she would try. He was married—so he said—but
he was also NIS, which was becoming synonymous with doing the least
likely thing she could imagine.

That’s not gonna happen.

While he stood at the door, she remained by the video controls,
searching for a weapon. He seemed to take that as assent to continue
speaking.

“It’s just that...well, you’re so pretty...”

The desk had nothing she could use as a weapon. A red stapler. A
small pen. Spiral notebooks.

“When Jane and I got married, it was more or less arranged.
We had a few great years. Even had a daughter. But in the
organization, the biggest factor in marriage is how the two families
can benefit each other. My family had extensive inroads in the
medical community. Hers was—”

He smiled at her.

“—actually, that’s classified.” He sighed,
with a touch of sadness. She couldn’t tell if it was real, or
simulated. “The old habits die hard. I would never do anything
to hurt her, even if I don’t love her. And her father saved my
ass...”

Hayes went on, describing their relationship in more detail than
she really cared to know. The takeaway was that he seemed to be
putting himself on the market for romance, which was precisely the
wrong thing to do, given her own background. More than that, it was
the wrong thing to do to any woman in this situation. That he didn’t
see that made her angry at how stupid he was.

“...I guess what I’m saying is that I look at you—a
bright future in the medical field—and him and his future in,
um, zombie slaying, and I don’t see the draw. You know?”

Hayes hadn’t moved from the door. No weapons magically
appeared for her. She wasn’t sure she’d need one, but
‘zombie slayer’ Liam would insist she always have one.
The irony of no weapons in the security monitoring station didn’t
escape her.

“What, exactly, is your point?” she said defensively.

He studied her. She wondered if he was sizing her up, until he
looked at the door itself, then back at her. “Oh! No, it isn’t
like that.” He held out his arms and waved her to go through
the door. “No, this isn’t a proposition. I’m much
too old for you,” he laughed.

“Then what is this all about?”

When they were outside the door in the moonlit hallway, he spoke
while she moved to the far side of the door. She was free to run if
she wanted.

“My point is very simple. You don’t need Liam, right
now. He chose to go off and do, whatever you said he was doing, and
you have the opportunity to help him and everyone else, here.”

“You want me to abandon him?”

“No, of course not. Just give him a break, like he did to
you.”

He was way off. She was the one who chose not to go with him, but
she saw where he was going with this.

“Not that it matters, but Liam saved my life. Several
times.”

“He got you into those situations,” he interjected.

She laughed. “Did he get me shot by your team? Is that
really what you’re saying?” she said, almost daring him
to respond. When he said nothing, she went on. “No, now isn’t
the time to sit by and do nothing. Liam and his grandma believe each
person has to step up and try to save the world. Some people are
boarding up the windows of their homes, intending to die in place.
Others are running to the North Pole, or wherever they think they’ll
find safety. But Liam has chosen to go into danger so he can help
everyone. That’s part of why I need him.”

“But you don’t need him
right now
. We can go
off, grab Grandma, and collect him later.”

There was some truth to that. She did voluntarily let him go with
his mom. But she needed the time alone to—lay her old life to
rest. It had nothing to do with him, other than she needed to exit
the Liam roller coaster just long enough to tend to her own affairs.
Thinking about him in this context made her grateful how easy he’d
made it for her. He didn’t complain when she pretty much
insisted she needed to do this by herself. It reinforced every
feeling she had for him.

Though Hayes stood nearby, she felt the smile on her face as she
recalled their moment behind the big tree after they’d escaped
from St. Louis. She thought she’d have to kiss him first, but
after she’d pulled him behind the tree—away from the eyes
of the police and other refugees—he’d figured out her
clever plan and leaned in to kiss her. It was short but so worth it.

When they were done, she whispered a thank you in his ear. He
probably thought it was because he’d helped her get out of the
city, but it was much larger than that. He’d given her hope to
look ahead, finally, after being on the run from her life since that
dark night in the Colorado woods. That feeling of escape washed over
her once more, and she knew Hayes wouldn’t understand.

“No. You’ve got to trust me on that. There is no way
I’d leave this camp without Liam. Case closed.” She
folded her arms across her chest. It felt pouty, but her point was
made.

Liam, please hurry.

2

“I—” Hayes began. He looked down the hall, past
her.

“Wha—”

He shushed her. In the creepy hallway, there was no need to
question him. She watched his face. His finger remained over his
lips, as if he still saw the object behind her.

It took thirty seconds, then he sprang for the open door of the
control room, trying to pull her in. She hesitated to go back in,
after all they’d just discussed, but relented.

Hayes whispered. “There’s someone at the far end of
the hall.”

“A guard?”

“I sent the guards outside. I wanted to be alone with you.”

She looked at him with a frown.

“No, not like that. I wanted to be able to talk to you
without being overheard. The NIS is still a hidden organization. I
didn’t want to endanger those men’s lives by getting them
involved.”

It seemed reasonable, though that made her more suspicious of the
entire chain of events tonight. He was always thinking ahead.

And I’m always thinking behind.

The realization was important, but she tucked it away for another
day. If the guards were gone…

“A student perhaps? Out for a moonlight stroll?” she
said it to be funny, but it didn’t ring true. Even in the brief
time she’d spent with the research students, they’d
seemed frightened and pliable. The days of midnight pranks were long
gone.

“No. I followed you through the tunnel and locked the gate.”

She didn’t know there even was a gate down there, but it
made sense.

“I don’t suppose you told the guards to lock the
doors, did you?”

Hayes was at the edge of the door, peeking out. When he came back
in, he looked at her with a yes nod. “I needed to make sure you
and I had this meeting. The guards were instructed to keep the doors
locked, and they wouldn’t have done it any other way. There are
zombies in this building, and the safety of the whole camp depends on
them staying in here.”

She looked at him like he’d just stepped in dog dirt.

“What? You think I knew this would happen?”

“You locked yourself into a building with zombies. What did
you think was going to happen?”

He looked past her.

“The monitors.”

As quietly as he could, he pulled the door shut. It had a stout
security deadbolt, which he secured.

“We’ll be safe in here,” he assured her. “Let’s
see what we’re dealing with.”

At the security desk, the feeds showed different parts of the
building. The only one turned off was the one in her dorm room. He
pointed to the screen where the patients were under observation. The
zombies that were previously walking around the bedded patients were
no longer there. The front door was propped open.

They watched the screens. One of the walking zombies showed up on
the stairs. Moving down to the basement. In the strange infrared
vision, she could only say it was a woman in a dress.

After a time, a second zombie showed up on the stairs. Moving up
to their floor. There was at least one more already on their level,
at the end of the hall.

“I hate to ask something so obvious, but when you locked us
in here, did you think to bring a gun?”

His eyes told her what she already knew. Despite his hand in the
Zombie Apocalypse, he seemed to hate the idea of using guns.

“Do we have a radio, at least? Can we call in the guards?”

“I, uh...”

“You removed the radios, didn't you?” She was getting
angry.

“Well, I couldn't have you calling for help before I got a
chance to talk to you, alone.”

“Dang it. Now I have to spend my whole night in a tiny room
with the one man...”

He waited for her to finish her thought. When she didn't, he tried
it himself. “The one man who can save humanity?”

“I was going to say the one man who tried to have me killed,
but then I realized there are a lot of men—and women—who
wanted me dead, along with everyone else. Why is the NIS so evil?”

Her Christian background searched for a good versus evil angle to
things, though it couldn't reconcile Hayes. A man who helped design
the plague, and seemed to be the only one working to fix it.

“You'd be surprised, I think, if you met those people. The
ones I know, at least. They're bureaucrats, politicians, soldiers.
They get up and eat breakfast just like you. You couldn't pick them
out of a crowd of average people if you tried. That's what makes them
so dangerous.”

“Us. You were supposed to say 'that's what makes us so
dangerous,' right?”

“You still think I'm working for them?”

“I don't know who you're working for. This whole—”
she waved her arms wildly, trying to signify both the video monitors
and the world outside “—scenario you've created tonight.
It's insane. Why not just invite me in the light of day and explain
what you were doing? All of this—” she gestured with her
arms again “—was just stupid and unnecessary. Frankly,
it's what I would expect from someone working for a super-secret
government agency.”

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to the old ways. Not
because it was evil or because I wanted to work on viruses, but
because it was safe. There are probably medical teams working in one
of the fortresses around the country, making the same discoveries I
am. And they're doing it in the comfort of impenetrable walls. By
comparison, I'm on the front lines of this disease, risking myself
every minute I'm out here.”

“But you're making these great discoveries. Even if your
methods are unorthodox, and I'm not saying I agree with them, but
even I can't deny this is a huge discovery.”

That seemed to perk him up. “So you'll help me?”

“When we get out, I still want to try to find Liam. Then he
and I will decide what to do next. We're a team,” she said with
finality.

It's going to be a long night.

3

They spent another half hour studying the monitors, though they
were only able to say definitively where two of the released zombies
had gone. The woman in the lower level had gone missing.

“I hate to bring this up. We have to get a warning to those
guards before they come back in the building. If they unlock the
doors, the zombies may jump on them and get free.”

“They're trained to handle that. We just have to wait it
out,” Hayes said matter-of-factly.

Deep down, she wanted to listen to him. Just sit back and wait for
sunrise, and let the guys with guns handle the trouble. But there was
a whole refugee camp behind that thin blue line of guards. If the
zombies got past them, it put everyone in danger,
including—perhaps—Liam.