Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (26 page)

“We just leave the room? Who takes care of you overnight?”

“Don't know. I slept through all of last night.”

She asked a nearby woman who seemed on high alert. “Excuse
me, what happens overnight?”

“They don't tell you?”

“I wasn't told anything, except come in here and keep this
man company.”

“Well, some of 'em come back. Most don't.”

Victoria looked at some of the other patients, who had to have
heard her talk. None met her eye.

“You mean tomorrow morning some of you will be gone?”

“Not some. Most. I've been here three nights. Two of those
nights they come in and took people. The first night they probably
did too, but I was too tired and never woke up when they were here.”

“Who's they? Where did those people go? Where do new people
come from?”

The woman laughed. A couple of the others in the area also cracked
smiles, but still wouldn't address her directly.

“We hope we'll see you tomorrow.”

She was about to press the question when a few men—and one
mean-looking woman—came through the door into the mostly
emptied room. The patients were still there, but few of the
attendants.

“All right people, the doctor is in da house!” A man
dressed in a campus security uniform yelled to the few students left,
including her. “You need to be gone, now!”

“I'll check on you in the morning.” She headed for the
door.

“I hope I'm here,” came back in a hushed voice.

Once out of the room the students all went down the stairs, then
they continued down into the lower stairwell where they could catch
the tunnel back to wherever they came from.

Briefly, she looked for Lilly, but that was fruitless. She walked
out the front door and made directly for the medical tent out in the
crowd of Forest Park. Doctor Yu should be there, waiting.

The gunshots almost surprised her. Somewhere on campus, someone
was unloading round after round. The noises of the shots echoed
around the buildings on the brick campus as she walked. Constantly
she increased her speed until she was nearly at a jog when she
reached the edge of the big crowd.

It took her ten minutes to reach the tent, then another hour
before Doctor Yu was free to talk.

“Thanks for seeing me. Can I help you while we talk?”

“Sure, you can roll up these bandages with me.” The
doctor was pulling dried bandage wraps off a clothesline. “These
are for people with circulation problems. We wrap them around their
legs to keep water from pooling there. I like to keep them
neat...though between you and I, the longer this goes on, the more
other doctors are going to raid these things until the circ folks
have nothing to use.”

“Triage?”

“You might say that, though the people who need these
probably need them more than anyone with a laceration or bite.”
She paused. “Thanks for stopping by. I, uh, wanted to see what
made you go to that research group? I thought you were going outside
with Liam.”

“I was, but I thought I could do more good here. I was in
the Barnes Hospital internship when the stuff hit the fan.”

“Really? That's a great—was a great program.”

“I just want to do something to help while I try to figure
out what I want to be when I grow up.” Victoria smiled, hoping
it would rub off on the doctor.

“You should stay away from those people. I know we are
post-apocalypse and all, but their methods aren't very scientific.
They go through test subjects too quickly to really know if they're
doing any good.”

“Are they working on a cure?”

“Who isn't?” She paused, considered her reply, then
continued. “Actually, me, most times. I have to split duties
here in the camp with those in the research division. The bosses
don't want to antagonize all these people by pulling back on the
medical staff, though I know he wants to. Saving civilization will
come from research, not papering over skinned knees.”

“You sound like Liam. Always looking at the big picture.”

Yet, it still didn't add up.

“It's pretty dull work. How do they get all those kids in
there to watch over them. Why so many like that?”

Doctor Yu stared at her for a long while. She finished wrapping a
long stretchy bandage and looked up.

“What?”

“They didn't tell you what you were studying there? Did they
tell you what was on the top floor?”

“No, what's on the top floor?”

5

Victoria waited until it was after midnight. Miki Yu had given her
all the instructions she'd need to see things for herself. The doctor
said she would wash her hands of the affair if she was caught, but
otherwise seemed anxious that Victoria discover the truth.

All the watchmen had their eyes focused on the zombies outside the
walls—so Yu had claimed. As she slid through the darkness to
the research building, she was inclined to believe it. There weren't
any guard stations, lights, or movement. In the distance she could
hear the ever-present gunfire of the city, but none close by.

The key, she was told, was to go to a nearby dorm building and
find the tunnel underneath the campus. Her own dorm was too far from
the core of the university, so it wasn't part of the interlocking
system. She flicked on a small flashlight and began walking in the
direction she needed to go.

“They don't lock the place down like they should. Students
don't leave their beds, much less their rooms, when they think
zombies are nearby. They simply turn out the lights and nobody moves
all night,” Doctor Yu had explained.

So why am I the idiot out after curfew breaking all the rules.
That isn't me, at all. This is Liam.

She reached the sign for Whitaker and went up the steps. Miki said
there may be a lone guard wandering around on the first floor, and
again she was right on the money. Victoria watched as the man drifted
down one hallway and then she softly ran across the entryway to the
stairwell up. She heard her own shoes and thought they sounded like
bongos plodding across the floor, but the man didn't come running.

On the second floor she reached the top step and waited. There
were no guards visible.

“Don't worry about the second floor,” Yu advised. “Go
to the third.”

Is Neil still in there?

She thought about what she wanted to do. Go up, or check on the
man she'd sat with most of the day. Yu said go, but her nurse's heart
wanted to ensure he was either gone, or being tended to by a night
crew.

She tip-toed across the linoleum floor, sure that her frying pans
were alerting everyone on the floor. But her soft-soled running shoes
served her well. She arrived at the door of the research room and
could look inside. A soft light came in through the many outer
windows. The moon was at just the right angle.

Her eyes took time to adjust.

First she could make out the white sheets of the beds. They were
still in there, though that didn't surprise her. They wouldn't move
beds around.

There were a couple nurses patrolling the room. She picked them up
as her eyes continued to absorb the details of the dark room.

I think there are people in those beds.

She looked down at the door, and considered whether she could get
it open so she could take a closer look. Surely the nurses wouldn't
mind some extra help, would they?

There were no light on. At all.

Something wasn't right.

The nurses walked among the patients, though some moved faster
than others. That alone gave her pause. The night shift should have
fewer nurses, not more. She counted five.

A different research project?

Her pupils grew larger and the data coming in became even more
detailed.

The nurses weren't dressed like nurses. They were in civilian
clothes.

She thought she could see a face. It was glistening.

It fell into place like the final pieces of a complex jigsaw
puzzle.

The odd movements. The lurches. The searching behavior. The
wetness on their heads. On their necks.

Oh God, no.

There were zombies in the room. It suddenly made sense. The
zombies were walking among the test subjects—they were left in
there. The nearest body on the bed was still strapped in. It was too
dark to see any facial details, but there was definitely a restraint
over their mouth. It could be the fear she felt, but she thought the
test subjects were squirming.

Whatever was going on inside, she wanted nothing to do with it.

She looked down the hallway, found it clear, then looked once more
into the room.

A zombie face appeared in the window of the door.

She froze.

In the moonlight she watched as it appeared to sniff the door and
cock its head like it was listening for something. The filth on its
face wasn't visible in the terrible light, but when it licked the
glass she could see the disgusting film that had to be red.

She prayed it would leave the door so she could escape unnoticed.
She hadn't even brought her gun. There wasn't supposed to be any
threat inside the walls. On the spot she decided from that day onward
she was going to take a gun into the shower with her.

With a loud snort, the zombie moved out of her field of view. She
was just about to move when something told her to stay still. Almost
as she resolved to keep her feet planted, the zombie came back to the
window—as if it were playing a game with her.

Sensing nothing new, it left faster the second time.

She ran. First to the stairs, then down a few steps.

No. Liam would go up. I know he would. I can't let him down.

With great effort she spun on her heels, and trod upward.

6

The third floor was also the top level. She was dismayed to face a
set of closed doors when she reached the top. The crazy thing was the
lack of adequate security. If there were zombies afoot, experiment or
not, there should be Army tanks surrounding the building. That's how
she'd do it, if asked.

Well, V, do you leave this place and get a good night's rest,
or pull the doors and find out what's going on up here? Your call.

She argued with herself for many minutes. At one point she was
convinced she was better off leaving, but an image of Grandma Marty
popped in her head. If Grandma was inside those doors, and there was
something she could do about it, by God she needed to go inside.

At last, she made up her mind to do it. She pressed on the door
latch to try to get the twin doors to open just enough to let her
through, but they made a loud squeaking sound when she moved them
even a little bit. Years of misuse must have made them less than
optimal.

Get it over with, silly.

She pulled one of the doors and slipped through. It was impossible
to keep the door from coming back to the closed position, and when it
did, the noise echoed in the interior hallway. A curse word was on
the tip of her tongue, but she managed to hold it in.

The top floor had one long hallway running end to end. She was
roughly in the middle. Moonlight fell into both ends—it
reflected off the trees and other buildings. If nothing else it
provided her a framework from which to search the floor. She had all
night.

The first few rooms nearest the stairwell were filled with beds,
but they were most definitely empty. They may have been overflow for
the research on the floor below.

One room had the soft glow she associated with computer screens.
She peeked in through the window on the door and confirmed her
suspicions. A bank of monitors glowed with the motion of a dozen
rudimentary screen savers.

After a quick look inside to ensure there weren't any guards
asleep at their desk, she looked both ways in the hallway and then
tried the doorway. It swung open without the faintest sound.

Oh sure, now I get the quiet door.

There was a small click when it shut behind her, but if no one
came running for the larger doors, they weren't coming for that one.
She took a seat in the nearest chair and pulled the nearest keyboard.
She clicked a letter to see which screen saver kicked off. The
closest monitor lit up with a live video feed. It had a little
indicator near the bottom which displayed “recording.”

She studied it for a minute, until it made sense. The camera was
displaying the room downstairs. The false light of the computer made
it easy to see the five zombies walking among the beds, but also the
faces on the people laying there. Most were in states of horror. They
shook. They quaked. They were likely screaming for help under their
gags. It was horrible to watch, though it wasn't clear at all what
the purpose of the experiment might have been.

She jiggled the mouse of another computer and the display monitor
showed another room with just a few people tied into their beds. It
was much darker there, but she had a feeling she knew the identities
of those people—or at least their ages.

My butt they sent them all home.

In quick succession she got all the video monitors working. Room
after room showed beds in darkened rooms. Some were like hospital
wards with many beds, but most only displayed a few beds. One showed
a scene with two beds in a small room.

It caught her eye because of the box sitting on the floor between
the two of them. It was something she recognized.

Her stomach dipped, ducked, and then dodged a little.

“No. No. No,” she whispered.

She moved over to that computer and jostled the mouse around.
After some trial and error she found what she was looking for: the
controls for the camera.

Within moments she had readjusted the camera and saw her photo
album lying on Casey's bed.

Oh my God. No.

Working the controls she rewound the tape. The live feed dropped
to the corner of the screen, unaffected by what she was doing in the
main portion of the window.