Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (22 page)

Is this a BB gun?

He was very close when she lifted the gun and aimed for his head.
BB gun or not, it should hurt anyone to get shot in the face.

She got off one final shot before he was on top of her. He yelled
loudly as he grasped her and pulled her to the floor. The gun,
useless though it was, clattered away loudly in the empty tunnel.

Short Guy was in pain. His voice was labored, and the epitome of
angry.

“I'm going to kill you if it's the last thing I do,”
he shouted, almost in her ear.

His grip was vise-like. In moments he had her pinned to the
ground, though he struggled to right himself on top of her. He seemed
to pause to catch his breath while he lay heavily over her chest.

He giggled maniacally.

“Maybe I'll make you pay twice,” he said with a raspy
whisper. His hand searched her waist. Its intent was obvious.

She squirmed desperately against him. Afraid of what she would see
in his eyes when he finally had her in a helpless position. What that
hand signified.

The gun was far away. She'd lost the screwdriver. She'd—

The screwdriver!

Maybe he kept it? It was the sort of thing someone would do if
they wanted revenge. And these guys were all about revenge...

Short Guy continued to struggle while lying flat on her chest. She
continued to resist, but fought him with her arms...she struck him on
his hip and tried to hit his back. She managed to land a terribly
weak blow on something solid.

“Enough of this,” he said madly.

Victoria had her head turned away from him, while she struggled to
reach for his last weapon. She didn't see the strike coming. Short
Guy banged his head against hers, which was a double hit because hers
was already on the hard floor.

Her vision blurred as he finally got the energy he needed to push
himself up to straddle her properly. Between the pain in her head and
the tears welling in her eyes, she could barely see him. He was a
specter hovering above her.

Though loathe to admit it, she was dreadfully scared. He'd gained
the leverage needed. It was the signal her death was on the way...and
whatever else he was going to do to her prior to that. Her strength
flagged.

When she met his eyes, she closed hers for a long few seconds to
clear them. When she opened them, she screamed in horror.

“What? Never seen a guy with no eyes?” he cackled.
“Oh, you're gonna pay. Once for each eye.”

She pushed back with all her remaining strength, grasping at his
backside.

Then she let her head fall back to the concrete. She was spent.

“She said you were fighters. You and that doofus and his
Grandma. But you're just stupid kids. Stupid f—”

She plunged the screwdriver into Short Guy's left ear with
everything she had. When she didn't think it would go in any further,
she pushed some more.

Short guy seemed to pause. Almost like he waited to see if that
was the best she had. Like he did when he didn't care that she shot
him multiple times.

She panicked, and let go of a deep sob.

It's not working!

She wondered if she'd missed his brain and only wounded him. There
was no hope of surprising him a second time.

But Short Guy was definitely hurt.

“Oh.” A long pause. “Oh. Oww.”

He fell to her chest again. She might end up dying from being
smothered…

He spoke into her armpit. “You don't have a chance, you
know. None of you do. If it ain't these zombies, it will be others.
We've planned this to the last body, and you have no idea where the
zombies are coming from.”

Thinking back to the red dressed zombie, and her strange reaction
at their meeting, Victoria had more than enough research in her
pocket to respond.

“No, Mr. Short Guy, I know exactly where the zombies are
coming from.”

She banged on the screwdriver handle, but there was no reaction
from the body. He was gone.

The only good thing the man had done in the short, miserable time
she'd known him was to not turn into a zombie. A bullet to the eye
and a screwdriver to the ear made sure of that.

When the dead man rose up from her chest, it took her a few
seconds to recognize that Hayes had come down from his refuge, after
all. He pulled the guy off.

“We have to close this gate. They're about to burn the
building,” he said as if he were reading a weather report.

“You saw me on the camera?” she asked dreamily.

“Yep, that's how I knew to come down here.”

That's great, but not why I asked. Not at all.

Hayes had to help Victoria through the tunnel and out into the
sunlight of the morning. The shock of the assault was bad enough, but
the realization she may be infected sent her onto psychological thin
ice. Her mind raced as her body ached.

I must get out of here. Run away.

The few students she’d seen, plus the men and women at the
barricade, were a small glimpse of the total number of survivors
within the killing range of a single zombie. Just one was all it
would take to wipe everyone off the map. Unable to know for sure if
what she’d seen down in the tunnel was the result of her truly
being infected, or was simply another strange behavior of the zombie
horde, she fell back on her long history of hypochondria. Now that
the suggestion was in her head, she was convinced she was infected.

The sting of daylight didn’t brighten her mood.

“You all right? Did you get bitten?” Hayes had
released her now that they were outside, and somewhat safe, but he
seemed to study the blood over her shirt and pants—likely
looking for bites.

She huffed. “I’m fine.” Then, with more grace.
“He caught me off guard. I guess I got startled.”

Hayes stood next to her. “Well, you should be scared. That
man was part of an NIS hit team, no doubt about it. They all dress
like there’s only one color of clothing.” He handed her
the black rifle she'd dropped.

She didn’t want to admit it, but Hayes probably saved her
life. After getting her to her feet, he helped close and lock the
gate in the tunnel. He assured her none of the zombies escaped the
building, and in fact all of them were at the front windows of all
three floors watching a growing throng of students—and security
people from the barricade—as they attempted to start a fire.

They soon watched the action in real time. Sparks and his crew had
filled some kind of push cart, and it was burning wildly.

“They’ll torch the whole place. Zombie problem
solved,” he said evenly.

“It’ll ruin all your research...”

She was conflicted into silence. On the one hand, the research
Hayes had done there was incredible, and could lead to a cure. On the
other, clearing the building would be dangerous, and the risk of one
of them getting out would only increase if security teams went in
looking for trouble.

The NIS had done their job too well.

“The man I killed. The shorter guy. Do you know what he was
doing in that lower level before I arrived?”

Surely he wasn’t waiting just for me.

Or, she thought, that was exactly what someone like him would do.
He guessed that’s where she would go next. Did he know Hayes
was locked up there?

Suddenly the conspiracy launched into an infinite regression.
Hayes was in on it. He communicated with Short Guy, and they were
working together to bring her back so they could take care of her,
and the zombies, in one fell swoop.

Then she remembered that if she was infected—a modern day
Typhoid Victoria—she should be put down. Maybe they were trying
to do her a favor…

“Hello? You in there?”

Victoria came back. “Oh, I’m—sorry, what?”

“Do you want to watch these guys torch the place, or can we
move on?”

The guys from the barricade weren’t that far away.

“I need to go tell them thanks. They saved both our lives.”

“OK. I’ll wait over there,” he pointed to the
far end of the parking lot, which was the edge of campus and the
beginnings of Forest Park.

He walked off, leaving her alone in the first rays of sunshine
coming in through the tall, stately trees of the campus. She tried to
gather her wits as she neared Sparks. The smell of burning paper was
on the air.

“Hey, there she is!” Sparks said with gusto. “Perfect
timing. You were short and sweet. So were we.” He pointed to
the cart filled with flames. They’d filled it with books.

“Yeah, I, uh, wanted to tell you I got the man I was looking
for. And I—”

She wanted to say she killed the assassin, but it sounded
ridiculous. Like she was some kind of counter-terrorist soldier—which
was pretty much the furthest thing from the truth.

“—found the guy who shot your people. He was attacked
by a zombie.”

Despite the gray lie, the story sounded plausible and served the
same purpose, in the end.

“Ah, that’s good news. We’ll burn his body with
all the others.”

She pawed the rifle strap over her shoulder, and brought it around
to her front. “Do you want this back? I fired it at that
hitman, but he laughed when I shot him.”

“No, keep it.” He got close enough to look it over.
“That's chambered in .22 caliber.” He laughed. “It
looks bad ass, but it won't do much good against Kevlar or the
undead. But it's all I can give you.”

She sighed. Short Guy's gun was lying somewhere in the
tunnel...though she was pretty sure it was now on the wrong side of
the gate.

“Thanks,” she said as she pushed it to her back again.

“I have to go,” she continued. “I need to find
my boyfriend, and get my scientist friend another lab,” she
pointed to the one they were about to destroy.

“Lots of space on this campus. You’ll have no problem
on that score.”

She was sure he was right, though he couldn’t know the NIS
was already here looking for Hayes. No matter what building he wanted
to use for his research, they’d not let him do it.

Maybe I could do it myself? I could cure myself.

Her spirits sunk at the recollection she’d momentarily
forgotten about that. It would be empowering to think she could
research the plague and cure herself and everyone else...but this was
reality. She was an amateur bedpan changer, not a medical
professional. She needed Hayes, just as much as he apparently needed
her.

She wondered if he would have ever come out of his security room
if she’d not found rescue. In another universe she would have
been killed by Short Guy, or red dress girl, then she herself could
have ended up killing Hayes at some point inside that building.

Focus on the now, girl. You kept him alive. Go find Liam.

2

Hayes watched her approach.

“You bounce back quick,” he said with a smile.

“So do you. Did you realize you’d have died if I
hadn’t found help? Short Guy was about to close the gate on
you. I don’t think anyone would have found you if the zombies
had gotten out from that building.”

“That short guy, as you call him, probably had more years of
training in the art of killing than you've been alive. You're one
tough chick, I'll give you that.”

They walked along the road that would take them by the park, the
row of mansions, or to the hospitals on the opposite end of Forest
Park. She tried to think of the best place to go next, knowing there
were people who wanted her dead lurking about.

The park would take her to Doctor Yu.

The hospitals might lead her to someone in charge. Someone who
could protect her.

The mansions—Hans' home was there. That's where she figured
she'd see Liam if he returned from his task for the old man.

“Liam would freak out if he saw you and me together.”

“Is he the jealous type?” he said with his old
egotistical charm.

“No. Well, I don't know. No!” she sputtered. “I'm
talking about you being a crazy researcher who shoots little girls
and kidnaps grandparents. That guy.”

He let her accusations go.

“He has to know what I'm doing. You have to tell him.”

She looked at him, rising to the challenge.

“He and I spent time in a deep mine not far from here. We
saw bodies pulled from caskets—dead bodies—that became
animated zombies. Care to comment?”

They walked in silence for a long time. She figured she'd finally
cornered him on something important. Her ace card was that she and
Liam had gotten a hold of Colonel McMurphy's secret videos showing
his discoveries of the place, but that wasn't her secret to reveal.
Not to Hayes.

“How did you guys get down there?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.” He laughed in a guarded fashion.
“I'm going to take a guess here and say that someone knows
you've been down there. Someone in the NIS?”

She searched her memories. They had no encounters with the NIS
while in the mine. At least, no one advertised themselves as such.
The three men who claimed to be Polar Bears were left behind in the
tank room. They knew. Whoever communicated over the computer link
knew. The three missing girls knew.
Lots
of people knew.

“Uh huh. I'll take it by your silence that it wasn't a
complete secret.”

Hayes walked to stand under one of the large trees that lined the
avenue. He looked around like he was about to share a secret, then
spoke in a low voice. “The Mile 444 Project isn't something I
was involved in directly, but I knew about it because of its
implications for finding a cure. If you could reanimate the dead,
imagine what you could do for the sick, right?”

He rubbed his hands like he was cold. “Before the sirens, a
discovery was made out in Colorado. Something that suggested the
disease circling the planet was more than we were led to believe. We
later came to understand it changes to meet the unique
characteristics of localities where it spreads. Thus, Chicago zombies
have a version of the disease that is very different from those in
Colorado. A sick person in Utah is going to be unrecognizable to a
zombie in Uganda. It isn't surprising, given local foods, local
customs, minerals in the drinking water, and so forth. But what
really surprised us is that the disease could affect dead flesh and
bones.”