Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (25 page)

Deveraux didn't get up from his desk. “Damn you, Doctor
Stevens. What are you doing to my research facilities?”

As on her last visit, the administrator sat looking at a screen
with a video feed. It had been playing footage from the convoy now
heading to St. Louis, but she couldn't be sure that was what he was
watching this time.

“Good to see you, too, Bosley,” Hayes said with his
best attempt at charm. “And since when do I get patted down?”
He acted offended, though he was faking it—just like his false
name.

“Since you started setting fires!” He banged on the
desk.

“Me? No, you've got me all wrong. She and I,” he
pointed to Victoria, “were trapped in the security room when
the zombies broke containment.”

“And what were you two doing in the security room, if I may
ask?”

Victoria's face burned. The thought of doing anything improper
with Hayes was repulsive. She was prepared for Hayes to run with that
fiction, but he surprised her.

“She was accosted in the tunnel on the way to her dorm. I
saw her on the cameras and guided her in. She was instrumental in
getting us to safety, and alerting the authorities on the defense
wall. They came and got us, and cleared out the infected. Sadly, the
only way to do that and still keep their men safe was to burn the
insides of the building.” He spoke as if he were reading a
prepared statement. To Victoria, it came across as the absolute
truth. He'd only left out certain details…

Deveraux looked at her for a long moment. Just long enough to make
her uncomfortable. “I guess I owe you thanks. Doctor Stevens
has made many advancements in the search for the cure in that
building, and losing all that work would be tragic, though losing him
would be a global loss.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Hayes responded with a smile.
“But, Bos, we have a new problem.”

The man slumped back in his high-backed swivel chair. “Just
what I need. More problems.” He nodded to the screen but didn't
turn up the sound. “The convoy is still stuck in West Virginia.
They say the bridges have been stressed by all the heavy equipment
passing over them. The repairs are taking a lot of time, and the
whole effort seems in danger of failure.”

Hayes took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and
put his feet on the edge of the desk like he owned the place. “You
only see what they want you to see. I guarantee they aren't holding
things up because of some rusty bridges.”

“Then what?”

“Oh, probably too many infected. Or too many people falling
prey to the zombies. Or, worst of all, maybe the convoy is already
here.”

The two men stared at each other. Victoria couldn't see Hayes'
face, but Bosley's eyes were rigid. His eventual response was
measured. “And why would that be the worst of all, doctor?”

Hayes looked up to Victoria with a smile, then turned back to the
desk. “Because, sir, it would mean our time in this dangerous
hellhole called the Zombie Apocalypse might be coming to an end.”
Victoria could hear the smile. Deveraux did not return it.

“I don't get you. You do such good work in the lab, but you
are a complete jagoff everywhere else.”

“See! That right there is why I need to get up here more.
The socializing.”

Victoria was unsure how to feel. Hayes was always a jerk, that
much was true, but Deveraux more or less threw her and Liam out the
last time, after they had suggested the zombie disease was much worse
than anyone knew. A fact he seemed determined to ignore on both
visits.

“Why did you really come here, doctor. I'm a very busy man.”

“I can see that. Watching TV and drinking Scotch can take a
lot out of a man.” Hayes reached to the desk and lifted a
napkin which had been placed over a clear glass of a golden liquid.

“Screw you. Do you have any idea what I have to deal with
here? Lists of dead. Threats of infection. Diminishing medical
supplies.”

“Don't forget, you're almost out of food,” Hayes
prodded.

Deveraux actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, that, too. And now
I have my most hopeful line of research go up in smoke because you
and this slut wanted to play sneak and slide in a private room.”

“Hey!” Victoria shouted, though Hayes was already
speaking.

“I told you, there's nothing going on like that. In fact, we
came to ask about her boyfriend, Liam.”

“You met him a couple days ago, with Doctor Yu,” she
said with accusation.

Deveraux reached for his glass, then downed the remaining two
fingers of Scotch. He set the glass back on his desk with great care,
apparently thinking as he did so.

“Liam won't be coming back, I'm afraid to say.” He
clicked some letters on his keyboard and the computer monitor flipped
from images of the convoy to a still image of an old man walking
along the main avenue outside the hospital.

“Hans Grubmeyer,” Victoria let slip.

“Yes. After you left my office the last time, you asked one
of my nurses for some proprietary information about elderly people in
the area. She explained where you'd gone. From there it was easy to
piece everything together. We watched all the people who went in. All
the people who went out. Our counter-surveillance operation is small
but efficient. We watched Liam and his friends leave the compound,
and we know he hasn't come back in. None of them have. They're dead.”

Hayes was quiet. She watched him, waiting for the snarky response.

“A shame about the research, though. Your appearance in camp
really helped take us to the next level.” Deveraux looked at
Hayes with a frown. “If it were up to me...”

“Doctor Stevens? What's going on here?”

He stood up, stretching like he was bored, then turned to her.
“This is the end of the line for you, I'm afraid.”

“What? No! We have to save Liam. Together. Like you
promised.”

But it was obvious. She'd been led into a trap. Hayes had betrayed
her.

2

“Um, no. That's not what's happening at all,” Deveraux
said with a pleasant voice. “You are being arrested for
destruction of government research. This is the end for
both of
you
.”

Hayes looked hurt, but she felt a tiny bit of relief when she saw
his expression.

“Aw man, I thought you and I had an understanding? I bring
you terrorists like Victoria, and you let me do my research in
peace.” He winked at her.

“We're way beyond agreements,
Douglas Reginald Hayes
.
She said you were the most dangerous person within a hundred miles of
here—”

“Only a hundred?”

“—and you walked right in my office.”

“She'll be so pleased.”

“Yes.
She
will,” Deveraux said with growing
anger.

“Will someone please tell me what the...heck...is going on
here?”

Hayes responded with mock seriousness. “Deveraux is doing
the bidding of one Ms. Elsa Cantwell.”

“Elsa? From the invitation? She controls him?”

“No one controls me, Missy. But Homeland Security is in
charge of everything you see out my windows. She's the only one who
can get me the supplies I need to keep my people alive.”

Victoria spoke with dawning understanding. “He doesn't
know?”

Hayes responded. “No, he still thinks there's a Homeland
Security.”

That peaked Deveraux's interest. “What are you saying? Of
course there's still a Homeland Security.” He pointed to the
screen, though it still showed Hans. “The convoy is being
guided by Homeland. The video feeds are Homeland. My food comes from
Homeland.”

Hayes laughed with scorn. “You must be dumber than I
thought. Elsa is the one who burned the research. Elsa is the one who
sent a team to kill Hans in his home. She's trying to kill me,
Victoria, and, in time, she'll kill you and everyone in your precious
camp. You can't sit up here and run out the clock on this disaster.”

The camp director didn't try to hide his actions. He reached for a
bottle he'd apparently set on the floor under his desk, then poured
himself a full tumbler. With a deep sniff, he tipped it back and
downed the whole thing in several big gulps.

“You better watch that bad habit,” Hayes said to annoy
him. Which it clearly did.

“Your mouth is a bad habit,” he said lamely.

“So where is Hans?” Victoria queried. If they knew
where the old man had gone, it might give her a clue to where Liam
had gone.

“We don't know. He was last seen walking the streets, but he
disappeared from his tail. No one took that old man seriously as an
escape threat.”

Hayes laughed.

“Yeah, it's all fun and games, but you are under arrest, and
when Elsa gets here we'll see if you're still laughing.”

“When will she be here,” she said innocently.

“When she's here. I don't make the timeline; I just run the
biggest damned camp of refugees in the Midwest.”

“She's playing you,” Hayes said with his normal charm.

“Shut up. Just shut up!” Deveraux was sweating
profusely. The hospital still had nominal power, but the air
conditioning had been set extremely high. His condition—including
glassy eyes and slurring speech—had nothing to do with heat.

“Where is she, Bos, old friend?”

“Old friend? We've only known each other for two weeks,”
he laughed weakly. “And you lied to me the whole time.”

“I meant that one day when we look back on this, we'd be old
friends,” he said with a smooth cadence. “One day we'll
look back on the time when we figured out that things weren't what
they seemed.”

“Ha! Her young beau came in here spouting about dead bodies
being reanimated by this virus. Some kind of supernatural mumbo
jumbo. Your research says people can carry the virus and not appear
to be sick at all—”

Victoria gulped, involuntarily.

“—and suddenly a 105-year-old walks out of our safety.
None of this makes any sense.” He looked at his empty glass.
“And this convoy. I've been watching it for days. Praying it
gets here before everything goes to shit.” He pointed out the
window. “You haven't been down there. People are losing
patience with us. With me. They want answers. They want to go home.
They want food. They want. They want. They f'ing want!”

Deveraux took his glass and threw it at the wall. In a stroke of
irony, it hit a wooden picture frame for some artsy tapestry and
plopped gently onto a nearby pile of papers. It was unbroken.

“God, I can't even get mad properly.”

“Sir, you have to let us go. I only want to find my
boyfriend, and get out of here.” She didn't want to speak for
Hayes. She didn't really know, for certain, what his intentions were.

The man laughed wildly. “See! Who the hell wants to leave
the safety of this camp? We are the only safe place left. And you
want to leave. Why? Help is almost here.”

She felt sorry for him. He seemed pitiful with his drinking and
impotent in his anger, but he seemed genuine in his hope to keep his
place running.

Hayes remained quiet.

“Mr. Deveraux. I've seen some incredible things outside of
your camp. I've seen dead men walk. I've watched hordes of undead
sweep over the healthy. I've climbed out of a grave. This man,”
she pointed to Hayes, “was once my worst enemy. He shot me, in
fact. But I believe him that Elsa is not with Homeland Security.
She's with another organization.” She looked at Hayes, but he
wasn't stopping her. “They're called the National Internal
Security. I met one of their agents a while ago. He said they caused
the plague, and I believe their goal is to kill us all. That's why
I'm asking you, please, to let us go. We'll get out of your hair, and
you'll never hear from us again.”

A lie?

“She said you were dangerous,” he pointed to Hayes,
“but I think you are far more dangerous, young lady.”

He keyed his phone. “Melanie, I'm sending my two guests back
down. Please give them their weapons and direct them to the gate.”

“Shall I tell your other party to wait, before going up?”

Deveraux held the button, evidently processing the possibilities
with his alcohol-fueled brain.

3

Hayes didn't wait. “Come on.” He grabbed her by the
arm.

“I'm coming.”

She expected Deveraux to say something, but he stayed silent at
his desk. She gave him one last look before she was out the door, and
he never stopped staring at the phone on his desk.

Outside the office, they saw the two security men in front of the
elevators. They were looking outside the windows, but when the
elevator dinged they turned to face the visitors.

“I guess she let them come up,” he whispered. “Follow
me.”

The sign for the stairs was nearby, but they had to walk toward
the elevators for a few yards. One of the men spotted them but
returned his gaze to the elevator in front of him.

“They saw us,” she whispered.

Hayes opened the fire door as quietly as he could. He proceeded
through and held the door for her. The moment before she walked
through, she caught sight of a person coming out of the elevator. She
couldn't be sure, but it looked like a woman.

The door snapped shut while they stood just inside. Hayes started
up the steps.

“Shouldn't we go down?” she asked incredulously.

“Trust me. We have to go up.” He didn't wait for her.

Left with two bad options, she decided to follow. Not because she
trusted him, but…

Why am I following him?

In a few short moments, they were at the top door. She didn't have
time to answer her own question.

“Hayes!” a man called from below them. “We know
it's you.”

Hayes froze against the door, then put his head against it.
Victoria began to say something, and he raised his finger for her to
wait one moment. He'd shifted, so his ear was against the solid
metal.

“I'm armed,” he shouted while apparently hugging the
door.