Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (18 page)

“Dang it, Hayes, are you going to make me be the man, here?”

“What? What'd I say?”

“You're planning to let those guards get attacked, just
because you don't want to risk yourself?”

He'd been that way back when they escaped from the Arch, but he
seemed to have learned nothing since then.

“Never get involved, when you don't have to.”

“But we have to,” she barked. “We have to think
of the camp. If just one of those zombies gets into the crowd, what
do you think will happen?”

“They have muzzles on, Vicky, don't sweat it.”

“Don't call me that.” Her anger was reaching a high
simmer. “Don't ever call me that.”

Hayes looked shocked at her response.

“Look, you...scaredy-cat...we
cannot
risk it.”

She looked around for the tenth time, searching in vain for
anything she could use as a weapon. A small utility shelf yielded a
tape measure, some duct tape, and a ten-inch long flat head
screwdriver. When she picked it up, it was like she'd struck gold.

“This!”

“What are you going to do with that? Unhinge the doors?”
he chuckled.

“I'm going to put those zombies down.”

“Whoa. You're nuts. Just sit in here and we're golden.”

If he felt any shame under her glare, he gave no indication.

“That's how you're gonna play it?” she asked. “Fine.
I'll go out and fight them, and you can stay in here and watch TV.
All I need to do is get to a window and yell down. It should be easy
as cake since we can watch the monitors to avoid the bad guys.”

On paper, it was cake.

The cake is a lie.

She wondered where the thought came from.

Bennie.

A boy from her old high school used the saying all the time in the
cafeteria when cake was served. She never cared enough to ask him,
but his friends always seemed to laugh at the joke. If she ever saw
him again, she would tell him that he was right about that. So much
of life was a lie, including the cake.

She hoped he'd argue, but he was soon by the door motioning toward
the lock.

“When you go out, I'll lock this door again and watch you on
the monitors.”

“And if I need help?”

“I'm sure the guards will hear you. Cake, right?” He
laughed a little, which she interpreted as his satisfaction at having
caught her in her own saying.

“Sure.” He wasn't going to be of any help.

A quick check of the screens placed the zombies in between the
floors, on opposite ends of the hallway. The basement zombie was
still missing, but it was last seen in the lowest level. Out of her
way.

Without fanfare, she unbolted the door and walked into the
hallway. As promised, Hayes locked it behind her. The security bolt
was surprisingly loud in the nighttime hallway.

“Just a stroll to a room with a window,” she whispered
to herself.

The screwdriver felt tiny in her hand. In moments she found an
open doorway in a room with a window. It was set up like a classroom.
Desks in neat rows.

She closed the door behind her.

The windows beckoned her.

Maybe this will be cake.

Inwardly she laughed. The whole affair would make a funny story if
Bennie survived.

The window slid upward and the warm air of the night blew in her
face. A tinge of the smells of thousands of people in the park nearby
accompanied the wind, but it was minimal. In the distance, many small
fires danced. Cooking whatever was left to eat.

Above, the stars were brilliant. Without the light of the city, it
was easy to see the stars as if she were in the wilderness of her
home state. She enjoyed the feeling and the memories for a few
moments before searching the grounds below for evidence of the
guards.

“Hello?” she called down as loud as she dared. “Is
anyone there? I need help.”

The paved walkways of the campus led away from the building to
other structures nearby, but there weren't any students cavorting
about as she would have expected of a university campus of old. It
was dead outside.

The university was near the park, but the campfires were hundreds
of yards away. She considered screaming—they'd surely hear her.

She jumped as someone beat on the door of the classroom.

“Holy crap!” The cuss word slipped out.

A constant, though quiet, pounding continued as she inched
forward. A head danced in the tiny slit window on the right side of
the wooden door. She'd been caught.

The screwdriver seemed to cause her hand to become clammy. She
moved it to her left hand and wiped the sweat on her jeans. If she
was going to use it, she'd put it back in her strong hand. For
instance, if the door broke open and a zombie spilled through.

Maybe all of them are out there?

She switched hands again.

The shape continued to move in an agitated fashion as she
approached the door. She imagined it getting angrier as she got
closer. That forced her to consider hiding behind a desk, out of
sight. Maybe it would die down and forget about her.

Onward she walked. She was close enough to see its face.

It wasn't a zombie. Somehow it seemed fitting Hayes would screw up
something as simple as walking across a hallway.

She opened the door, and he reached for her.

“Come. Hurry!” he shouted. His voice echoed in the
hall.

They returned to the security room. Hayes slammed the door and ran
to the screens.

“There! Look! Look!”

“Oh crap,” she said. This time, she intended to use
the word.

4

All the people in the research room had been untied and set free.
In an almost comical coincidence, a scream echoed in the sealed
building. The noise registered on the camera audio and through the
doorway behind them.

“You have to stay in here. We'll wait this out,” Hayes
repeated himself from earlier.

“Are you crazy? We have to warn people. Save those poor test
subjects.”

“No.” Hayes stood up and moved to the door. “We're
safe right here.”

Victoria still held the screwdriver, though she felt she was
seeing it for the first time. “Hayes. If you try to stop me,
we're both going to regret it. I'll fight you to get out there.”

He studied her face. “I don't doubt that for a second.”
He moved away from the door but pointed to it. “I'm locking
this again. I'll watch on the screens.”

“Really? You're going to let a girl go out there and fight
while you stay in this room and hide?”

“You can't guilt trip me, though I don't blame you for
trying. I've already told you; I can't die in a senseless battle with
the zombies. The safe play is to wait here and get out when help
arrives. Then I can continue my research.”

“Who do you think let all those people go?”

“Probably an animal rights group. Some of the students have
expressed concerns over the treatment of the test subjects, though
they were a tiny minority.”

She felt a passing nudge of guilt. She felt the injustice when she
first arrived. It was only later when she understood the need for the
experiment that she let it go. And, once she saw the results, it was
clear Hayes had done a true service in the drive for a cure.

But that didn't feel like what was happening here. Student
activists would want everyone to see them. It was just the way they
thought. This was something else. The guards were gone. The zombies
were released. Then the people were sent out after them.

She checked the hallway using the monitor. It was still clear,
though another scream rose up from below. After taking a deep breath,
she moved to the door and held the handle.

“I won't come back for you,” she said with finality.

“I'll be here in the morning.”

Victoria opened the door, then stepped outside. Before she pulled
the door shut behind her, she looked at Hayes as he stood watching
her. “If I didn't know better, I'd say the NIS has already
found you.” The door clanged as it shut.

Dark shapes moved in the moonlight at one end of the hallway.

She ran back to the classroom, quietly closed the door, then found
the open window again.

Below, it was still, and quiet. The guards remained elusive.

“Help!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She
cupped her hands to harness her voice and sent it out toward the
campers in the park. She continued to scream in other directions, and
then waited in silence, hoping for a reply.

Banging started on the door. This time it was heavy and irregular.

Muffled cries of help came from the hallway.

“
We saw you! Help us!”

She hesitated halfway back to the door. Hayes had said some of the
people were already infected, though it was latent. If she opened the
door, Typhoid Mary could walk right through.

But you sat with them all day. If they were infected, you'd
have gotten sick.

That had the opposite effect as she would have thought. She did
indeed spend the day with them, but if she was sick, she couldn't
risk giving them the infection.

But everyone would have been infected in there.

She moved closer, but stopped short.

If everyone was infected in the experiment, no one could leave the
building. It would have to be purged. If it prevented the spread to
the larger camp, she could accept that.

Her hand was on the door when someone on the outside banged their
head on the small window. The glass shattered but didn't blow out.
She watched as blood splashed heavily upon the glass. Screams pierced
the stillness of the room.

“Open the door. Help us, girl!” one of the shapes
called to her. She recoiled in horror that it reminded her of Liam.
Would she open the door if it
was
him?

“I'm so sorry. I can't open the door,” she with grim
determination.

“Victoria, is that you?”

“Liam?”

The young man in the darkness
could
be Liam. She had her
hand on the thrown lock, but checked herself.

“Don't let them in! You have to survive,” the
Liam-figure insisted.

“I know. I'm trying.”

The voice seemed to come from inside her head. Either the person
outside was Liam and he'd just spoken to her, or she was
hallucinating from too little sleep.

It could only be the latter.

The people outside became a bloody scrum of hand-to-hand combat.
Victims would alternatively plead with her to let them in, or lash at
her with the look of bloody hatred. Some ran. Others came. In
minutes, there was only hatred on the other side of the door, though
it was unclear if it was true hatred or the look of death that
mimicked hatred on their faces.

“They're all dead now,” she said to herself.

“I know. You did the right thing,” the Liam-shape
said. Except it wasn't alive now.

Definitely. I'm seeing things.

Victoria stepped away from the door.

Did I let them all die?

She prayed for forgiveness.

“Forgive me, Lord, I...couldn't help them.”

While she prayed, the scratching and pounding on the door sped up.
They all wanted in.

Hayes, safe in his room, was across the hall from all those
zombies. No help was coming from that direction.

She returned to the window.

As before, there was no one outside. Her screams had gone
unheeded.

“Help!” Her voice broke. She wasn't used to screaming
at the top of her lungs.

The banging on the door was feverish now.

“Defend yourself,” she said.

It took her five minutes, but she tipped over the desks and laid
them down end-to-end from one side of the classroom to the door. The
zombies would have to break the lock, then push the door and the
entire row of desks out of the way. She felt a tiny bit safer once
that task was done, but it didn't get her any closer to preventing
the escape of all the infected.

Whatever she was going to do, it had to involve the window.

5

The night air blew at her again. This time, it wasn't as
welcoming. She figured out the breeze was coming in from the park,
which meant her voice was fighting against the wind.

“You have to do this yourself, Victoria.”

The building was made of oversized bricks. She hung outside the
window to get a better look at the wall, thinking she could climb
down. Her assessment was that it would be futile to try. Maybe a rock
climber could give it a try, but she had no experience with such
things. A more likely scenario for her was that she'd try, and fall
from the third floor.

On the other end of the classroom's row of windows, she saw a
metal drain spout.

“Yes!”

The last window opened easily, and she found she could reach the
downspout, too. But climbing out the window and holding onto the pipe
was still very dangerous.

“Help!” This time, she shouted toward the other
buildings on the campus. They were fifty or so yards away, but
shouldn't be as affected by the wind. Someone had to hear her.

Minutes ticked by, and still no one came.

“Maybe those buildings have all been infected, ha ha.”

She talked to herself to calm her nerves, but wherever she came up
with that—it chilled her to the core.

Wouldn't there be screams?

“What if someone infected everyone in their sleep?”
she whispered in awe of the vileness of it.

Back at the window by the downspout, she knew what she had to do.

In moments she had shimmied so she sat on the window sill but
faced outside the window. Her feet dangled into the emptiness of the
night. Laughter from the park had caught the wind, mocking her.

She could reach the pipe with her arms, but it would take some
athleticism to grasp it and not fall.

Another deep breath.

With one quick motion, and without really thinking about it, she
jumped to the pipe and gave it a death grip with both arms. It was
about ten inches across and felt firm on the side of the building.